Varanasi

It seems like every day we set out to make a long haul drive to the next city some mechanical issue crops up, and today was no exception. Less than a kilometer after pulling out of the petrol station after filling up this morning our rickshaw started losing power, then died, and refused to start again. When draining the gas and replacing it, and taking the carburetor apart looking at it and putting it back together didn't solve the problem (Cyrus is quite proud that he was able to take the carburetor apart and put it back together and have it work by the way), we eventually had Lott and Slepak bring us a mechanic from town who discovered that our spark plug had issues. A little sand papering and cleaning later, along with some tweaks to the engine idle, and we were back in business running fine. Unfortunately during the fixing process we neglected to keep an eye on our screw driver with replaceable nibs and it "disappeared." We're assuming one of the many kids who were around watching us made off with it. Our funnel also disappeared, but that one is probably mostly due to team negligence as we had left it on top of the rickshaw during the fixing process and we probably just forgot to take it down before doing the test drive with the mechanic and it fell off somewhere along the way never to be seen again.

Two lane "super highway" for the next few hours allowed us to make good time most of the afternoon, and we made it into Varanasi and Hotel Divya a little after dark. We were surprised to discover another rickshaw from the rally parked outside the hotel next door, and they were actually people we had met before. We ate lunch with "Discovering the Earth" near Khozikide beach while we were still far to the south (on a side note, that lunch featured the best tasting bread we've ever had and we're still trying to figure out what it was that we had so we can order it again). We tried to convince them to come eat dinner with us again this evening, but they were retiring early so they could see a temple in the morning and then press on through Bihar and toward Kathmandu in the afternoon.

Speaking of retiring, that is where I am going to head and leave further blog posting in the able hands of Lott and Slepak as we're planning on waking up very early tomorrow morning in order to catch a boat and watch the sun rise on the river. I hear there's also a kite festival hapenning tomorrow. That should be interesting...