Woolly says – By the time we had surfaced from our beds the Ganges had already been given its morning blessing and breakfast, which was more than I had managed. We’d ordered some food at nine o’clock and by ten I was getting a little bit restless, having annoyed Jo as much as I could and been told to sit for the fortieth time I decided to trot down and find out where my scram was. Finally arriving at the bottom of the four flights our host looked a little surprised, and having asked when we were going to eat I wasn’t best pleased to be told that the chef wasn’t working today, I plodded back up knowing this wasn’t the answer the girls would be expecting.
We weren’t impressed and having shoved our bags into a corner of reception we asked why he hadn’t said when we had placed our order, he shrugged and wandered off!
Woolly says – First stop then would be something to keep us going and having gone up and down a few of the Ghats we found ourselves at the Bunny Café, I peered through the door to check for rabbits and having found the coast clear decided that it was safe to enter. Nothing beats boiled egg and soldiers for breakfast, do bunnies eat eggs? and having moved some of the yolk from my tusks onto a handy cushion I led the way back to the waterfront. Having spent yesterday heading to the left of our digs I thought it would be good to walk in the opposite direction and see what we could find, plenty more Ghats and lots of people bathing and washing their clothes next to the cows soaking in the holy water seemed to be the main things. The further we walked the less people we encountered and having sat for a while on some of the steps watching the boats taking their groups across the river and enjoying the tranquillity I asked if anyone fancied the fort.
The information we had read on the fort wasn’t encouraging but with several hours until our train it might at least keep my small friend occupied.
Woolly says – Our rickshaw of choice seemed to have no suspension and as we bounced up and down through the roads and over the bridge that spanned the Ganges, it was a relief to pull up at the fort. The frontage was impressive but did need some looking after. The Ramnagar Fort is a sandstone structure built in the Mughal style in 1750 by Kashi Naresh Raja Balwant Singh. It looked as though it was in need of a lot of tlc, rather like me! Having paid for our tickets and been told not to take any pictures inside, we entered the museum. It was dark, each carriage and car on display was that dusty you couldn’t even make out what colour they should be, we wandered through the first area and into the second which had some of the most dilapidated people carriers that must exist in the world, next came a room full of moth eaten cloth by which time we had run out of steam, the place was terrible and more like a disused junk shop than a museum. Having passed glass cases of guns and swords which were rusty and broken we found ourselves outside in a grassed area which was surrounded by old buildings that needed a good lick of paint, although I wouldn’t fancy licking any of them!
A doorway took us inside again and we passed through a room of what should have been beautiful stained glass but given its high level of dirt was impossible to tell, we found a narrow enterance leading to the riverbank.
Woolly says – Being so far up river, Varanasi looked like a pin prick on the horizon, having taken a couple of pictures of what should have a balcony of stunning wrought iron but was in fact in total disrepair, we decided that the fort wasn’t a place to visit and made haste towards the exit.
Our drive back resulted in Jo snapping more pictures of cows, I keep trying to stop her, I mean who want to look at hundreds of cow pictures? If they were as cute as me I could understand, but it’s every cow! She’s got very sneaky and just as I think it’s been a cow less day I realise when editing the pictures that she’s managed to take another thousand or so, I’m getting concerned that she might be addicted to cows! If anyone has information on rehab please let me know…..urgently! Having found a roof top café we sat watching life on the Ganges and the monkeys in the tree nearby, it was a soothing place to be, a place like no other and one that I would remember for the rest of my days.