I got dropped at the train station after my last post despite the fact the train wasn't leaving for another 5 hours. My driver had these rose flowers on his dashboard, I assumed it was for a religious reason. He left them there until they died and dried up, and then... ate them! I asked him why and he said it improves his sex life. Some people will believe anything! Anyway, I needed to kill time... I saw there was a golf course so decided to give it a go and got an auto-rickshaw there. As we approached, the 2 men driving me said it was closed. I was a bit suprised and asked how they could tell as we only drove past and they just kept saying it was closed and "we go see our friend first, he tell you it's closed." Only about 100m down the road we pulled up outside their friends house. "He very rich man" they said. They had obviously planned to take me here all along. They introduced me to this guy outside his house/shop and he invited me in for chai and a chat. I refused to go inside and his offer of a drink as a precaution so he pulled up some chairs out the front and we sat down. The 2 drivers were waiting in the auto-rickshaw at this point so it was just me and this guy.

We chatted about India, England and general stuff for about 10 minutes and then it started to get dodgy. He told me I could make a lot of money from my Indian visa. I thought he was just going to say by getting a refund for the time of it I don't use, but no. He told me his business was importing gems to European countries, including England, and a main problem he faces is the import taxes he has to pay. He said if I were to take some gems back for him on my visa he would give me a 50% cut of their worth. He would meet me in England when I got back and for now all he needed was my credit card details as an insurance method for himself. I wasn't having any of it and straight away got up and started to walk away. It's even actually mentioned in the Lonely Planet as the 'Gem Import Scam' where in the past people have had thousands of pounds stolen and been set up with drugs.

I got back in the auto-rickshaw and told them to take me straight back to the station. The gem guy tried once more to convince me it was a safe and easy way for me to make money but I quickly dismissed him. We started to drive back and the guys were asking if I wanted to go anywhere else first, not accepting that I wanted to go direct to the station, so I told them to stop, got out and refused to go any further with them. They weren't too impressed and an arguement began and they agreed to take me straight to the station but it just wasn't safe to. They then tried to get some money from me, so I made sure we were somewhere where there were a lot of people around and eventually they left and everything turned out ok. Don't worry mum etc, it's all part of the travel experience. It happens to many people, it wasn't my fault, I got out of the situation etc, it's all fine!

I actually saw one of them again later when waiting for my train. I turned around and he was just stood staring at me. I stared back at him and obviously my look was more worrying to him as he walked away and nothing was said. My train journey was the worst yet. It turned up half an hour late and was packed. Made me realise how lucky I had been before as there were 6 other people in my booth out of a maximum 7. I was on the top bunk and had to stay there the whole journey. My 'bed' was 6 feet long, 2 feet wide, rock solid and I had about 2 feet between it and the ceiling. The other people (all Indian) talked really loudly and played their stupid ringtones for hours. The men selling stuff walked past every 10 minutes shouting out what they were selling. And somehow, the journey took 4 hours longer than it was supposed to, so 16 hours in stead of 12. I didn't enjoy it one bit. Plus I have something wrong with my shoulder and the only thing I can think is that it was from resting on it funny in my lack of space. Just to top it all off, the man supposed to be picking me up from the station was an hour late, during which time I was hassled no end.

I settled into the hotel then went for a walk outside and around. There isn't that much directly surrounding the hotel so I ended up walking for a while and came to this park where a couple of games of cricket were going on. I got called over and joined in, they wanted me to bat. Luckily I was on good form so wowed them all with my skills! After several sixes I retired and had a go at bowling. When we'd finished playing I sat down and had a chat with the group, there were two brothers who were really nice and spoke good English so mostly talked to them and sometimes they'd translate. Some old guys from their neighbourhood came over for a while too. They told me it wasn't a good area to be in after dark and the sun was setting so I started to make my way back. I went via a car shop where they had some pioneer speakers which were only a fiver but would have cost around 16 pounds to post so I didn't bother with that idea. Just a quiet evening, Charlies Angels Full Throttle was on so watched a bit of that, had my dinner then went to bed early at about 10.30.

The next morning I was up at 5 readying myself for my morning excursion. Met with the guide and the other few guests at 5.30 and by 5.45 we were all down at the river Ganges (or Ganga as it's known here) and boarding our boat. I bought a candle in a tray for Rs 5 and left it afloat in the river for good luck. We watched the sunrise which was really nice and were rowed down past all the 'Ghats' (steps down to bathing areas at the river). The water is reeeeeally dangerously dirty (sewage waste is emptied into it) but everyone still baths in it, swims in it and does their laundry in it. Saw a dolphin too, I found it really weird that there were dolphins in there. The other thing I found weird was the 2 Cremation Ghats we saw, where bodies are publically cremated. After the boat ride we were taken to Benares University, which is the third biggest in the world and like a city inside a city. We also went to some important temples, including the only temple in Asia that is used by all religions (I think that's what it was :-s).

There isn't really anything else to see or do here so I spent the day at the hotel. It has a swimming pool, but the swimming pool situation is never straight forward... this time I had to pay to use my own hotels pool! So I spent the main part of the day in the pool, relaxing and listening to music (I wish I had more as I only have about 100 songs so have heard them all too many times now!) In the evening I decided to go back to the ghats to see it at sunset so got a bike rickshaw. I always seem to get the slowest riders so I ended up missing sunset but it was still good - much busier at night-time. Got back and had dinner at the hotel restaurant where the waiters drive me to despair. It's overpriced, the service is ridiculously slow (eg: 15 minutes for a bottle of water), they don't understand any English and hence bring me the wrong food half the time (eg: a full Indian breakfast when I asked for the bill).

So it's Thursday morning now and I'm catching the train to Delhi in 2 hours, glad it's to be my last one. Delhi is ultra-hectic though and I arrive at some ridiculous time in the morning which won't be much fun. Only 1 or 2 days there though and then I leave for Singapore!