Hello Varanasi

The train journey from Agra to Varanasi was another surprisingly pleasant one and I had ten hours' sleep, all thanks to the luxury of our second-class carriage - no beggars, chai-wallahs, screaming children or pushy people who whack you with their luggage to be seen!

I had a huge scare this afteroon as we checked into our guesthouse though. Lugging my bags up the six flights of stairs to our room, I noticed that one of my boots was making a metallic sound with every step I made - like the sound that a show makes when you've stepped on a drawing pin. I bent down, and in the dim light I could see what looked like a small pen stuck in my sole. I tried to prise it out with my fingers, and doing so flicked the cover off what was a used syringe! I was so incredibly lucky, the bare needle missed my finger by millimetres. And thank God for my lesbian hiking boots (aka Ellen and Portia), they may be butch and ugly but they saved a syringe from going into my foot!

Varanasi is amazing. we walked down the ghats this afternoon in the twilight. It's hard to know where to look because there is so much going on around the Ganges. I've got to go now but will write more soon.

E xxx