Quick update!

Long gap due to no internet access for awhile. We're in Varanasi now, so travelling adventures have begun! So far everything's going smoothly, lets hope it continues this way.

Unsurprisingly, the week after going to Nepal flew by. I don’t think I could have been more aware of how temporary my time was (sleeping under a giant poster of all the previous volunteers kind of puts you in your place), and yet I was still a bit surprised about having to go already. It felt very bittersweet to write goodbye notes to everyone instead of writing lesson plans! We spent the last couple of days visiting everyone to say one last goodbye. It was really sad. Already I miss these people so much. Leaving everyone on Wednesday was really hard, and we've been feeling a little bit low the past couple of days. I know I will go back there, hopefully soon.

On Wednesday we took the train to Kolkata, spent a day there, and then took another train to Varanasi. It would have been possible to go straight to Varanasi, but in our usual way we left it too late to book train tickets! Oops! It looked like we would have to fly there, but managed to find train tickets in the end. It was actually really nice to go back to Kolkata, and visit it on our terms. When I left in February, I had a bit of a negative impression of it, but now I really like it. Lots of good street food around as well!

Varanasi is very different from what we're used to. It's much more "Indian" than our area was - it's HOT, on the banks of the Ganges, and full of people and cows and goats. So far we're really liking it. We walked along the river early in the morning, and it was really peaceful watching everyone go about their business, washing clothes or themselves, playing in the water, doing puja, or just sitting and drinking tea. We're planning to stay here a few more days, and then on to Agra on Tuesday