Varanasi Under Water

Had a very leisurely breakfast in the lush garden at the back of the hotel. Lot's of yummy food, and an English newspaper as well!

Bade farewell in dribs and drabs to the rest of the tour group as they came down for breakfast. Departed for the airport at 11am in a taxi. Being Nepal, nobody knew if it was actually the taxi that I'd booked, but nobody seemed to think that it was a problem.

Got to the airport in plenty of time, then things went downhill. I went through the initial screening and pat down #1, but my flight (and my airline) wasn't listed on any departure boards. They eventually pointed me to a seat over somewhere and told me to wait. Eventually somebody put up a board, and we all lined up, but then the Nepalese guy couldn't find my booking. I eventually got a ticket, and when I asked for a window he solemnly told me I could sit anywhere I liked as there were only 25 on the flight. Found immigration and lined up, but just as I got to the head of the queue for screening and pat down #2 they stopped the line without explanation. Well, actually they only stopped the men's line - the ladies kept going. Some explanation in Nepali that the airport was closed. Something about 'big'. Eventually they started to let people on selected flights through, with no announcement of course, and that just increased the anxiety of the whole line as there was a long queue of loud Americans who were demanding English explanations.

In the confusion I got through even though my flight wasn't called, and made it to the gate in time to hear that the big flight of the afternoon to Singapore was cancelled, and all the passengers needed to go back to the check-in counter! However, some smaller flights seemed to be boarding, but I couldn't see them actually take off. The information board was showing the Windows blue screen of death which was reassuring, and our flight wasn't even listed on the departures board. A typical day in Nepal.

In retrospect I'm guessing that the security knew that the big plane to Singapore was going to be cancelled, and didn't want to keep filling the small departure lounge until all the passengers had left, but we'll never know for sure.

Planes started departing again soon after, and about the time our flight was finally called some 30 minutes late, I got a message from Mandy to say that she'd arrived in Varanasi.

I thought that, sitting at the gate, security had finished, but they patted us down (#3) as we went through the gate. We piled onto a bus that went 20m to cross the road, and we all piled off again to much laughter. Guess what? At the bottom of the plane stairs we had another thorough bag search, and another full pat down (#4). Never knew that Kathmandu to Varanasi was one of the world's most dangerous routes.

The plane was an old Airbus A319, with a broken tray table and no arm rest, but it made the 40 min journey without incident. Another bus took us the 20m to the arrivals gate, and the 4 immigration staff woke up to process us.

My car was waiting - the same one that had picked Mandy up, so it was reassuring that she had arrived too. The hotel is lovely - the first king size bed I've had for a while. Lovely Indian dinner in the hotel restaurant.

It's been raining non-stop in Varanasi for days, and they recorded a one day record for rainfall yesterday - 295mm, the river was rising 5 cm per hour, and many roads were several metres under water. Most trains were running 12 hours late, and the power was going off in our hotel every few minutes.

However, it didn't worry us at all, as we had an early night in anticipation of a very early morning.