Day 12 - Varanasi to Gaya

I met a guy today who owns and shop in Varanasi and his brother owns a shop in Gaithersburg.  He was a nice guy, but he wanted me to see what he had for sale.  I declined.  Also met another guy who was very nice, but wanted me to see (just see - not buy) his silk.  I also declined.  I am sick of looking at this silk stuff.  Although, I did buy a blanket/shawl today for $3.  I figured it would help keep me warm during the cold nights.

Also met this kid, John, who loves the American dollar “even though it has declined in value”.  He wanted me to buy some postcards.  He started at $10 and then was going to throw in something else for a 100 rupees or $2, again I declined.

This afternoon I took the train from Varanasi to Gaya.  I got to the station around 3:45 and there were no announcements or anything about what platform the train would be on.  The train was supposed to leave at 4:27, but there were still no announcements at 4:25.  A kid from China somehow knew I was waiting for the train and asked me about it and I said it was probably just delayed and that is why there was no announcement.

So the train that was supposed to take 5 hours took 7 hours and I didn’t get into Gaya until 11:00.  I had the upper bunk for the train ride, which was very claustrophobic and quite uncomfortable when you aren’t sleeping and a pain to get up and down in, especially when you don’t know what stop you are at and need to get off.  A guy who I was talking to about my kindle let me know when I needed to get off so I didn’t have to keep jumping up and down.  The only way to know when to get off is the time of arrival (which doesn’t help since most of the trains are not on time - it is this time of year because of fog.  I was told they run on time during the hot season.

I wanted to stay in Gaya until morning and then take a rickshaw the 10km (5 miles) in the morning.  However, this rickshaw driver said he knew a great hotel.  I should have followed my first instincts because he took me to a hotel that looked fine, but the guy wouldn’t show me the room before he wanted me to pay and at $12 I wasn’t going to do that so I asked the rickshaw driver to take me to some other places and it being almost midnight everyplace was booked so we had to come back to the first hotel and I paid for the room (without seeing it) and it was a decent room.  I don’t know why he just wouldn’t show me the room.  Very strange.