Random memories...

Varanasi.... the river Ganga, sunrise, from the rooftop of the Shanti Guesthouse.

Sitting cross legged on the second floor of a Varanasi bakery, one of those places that i suspect was "twice as old as history" - no, but isn't that everyone's favourite quote on Varanasi? I made another one up while in India -there are two types of people on this world, those who have been to India and those who have not been to India.

Ok the place was probably, judging from its peeling paint, lobby magazines (circa 1980s) and signed guestbook, a throwback to the heydays of the 70s where hippies sought paradise beside the great mother Ganga (or the river Ganges, more commonly, but amongst the Varanasi folk at the Shanti who linger for weeks/months, dabbling in language lessons, yoga, ayuverda, tablar/sitar classes, it will always be the former - it actually even feels like home, now)

Still, the bakery was one of the best places to eat in Varanasi. We chewed on tough, homemade wheat bread with yak-cheese from the Himalayas, downing tall glasses of heavenly, iced coffee, talking and teaching/learning languages - over the sound of the excruciatingly loud coffee machine, swapping travel plans and stories, planning to meet up again in Kathmandu, another legend on the road to nirvana.

The crowd in India, especially in the (weirdly late) monsoon (and apparently they, the Indians, bet on the monsoon) is different from the mainstream, gap year party crowds that you see in Thailand or Vietnam. Here, virtually everyone travels alone, for months on end, freaks of the 00s, and every other lone traveller you meet is a friend, a co-traveller, co-experiencer (cliche cliche but i really met a lot of amazing people who were so warm and open and full of insights and so unpretentious.) We would have these lazy, long talks, discussions, debates over meals that drag on for hours - US presidency being topic of the month. As we all know now, Mr Obama won (and i lost...)

Beloved Varanasi.... why i came to India in the first place...