Woke up at 4.30am and realised that the train had pulled into Varanasi Junction Railway Station. Continued with my slumbers till they started playing that irritating music in order to wake everybody up. Got into Hotel Clarks (it was in a rather clean part of the city) and stole a further 1 hour sleep before breakfast. I was already accustomed on staying in up-market hotels and gorging on huge buffets (i.e. demanded my eggs to be done in masala style; without onions of course).

After an hour of waiting in the hotel lobby, the group moved on to visit the next major pilgrimage site. Sarnath, a town just 10kms away from the City of Shiva, is the location where Lord Buddha gave his first sermon to 5 of his friends (who had left him after he had gave up on asceticism) in a deer park. If you had been a faithful follower of my travel blogs, you would have realised that I had been to Sarnath (via Varanasi) almost a year ago. Not alot had changed as I walked around the little town. As it was the eve of a major holiday (would talk more about this when I get to Kushinagar), the post office was closed and I had to send my postcard (it had somehow became a mandatory activity to be performed during my travels) in Varanasi instead.

Got back to the hotel at 1pm (it was a shame as we barely spent 2 hours in Sarnath) and had lunch. As my friend wanted to take a look in the real Varanasi, I decided to play part-time tour guide and we took an auto-rickshaw (Rs50/S$1.61) to Godaulia. Was amazed that the road leading to the Dasaswamedh Ghat was absolutely filled with shoppers looking for a good bargain for the Holi festival. Thus, we had to alight and march (a fast one) a fair distance into the main ghat. It was good that I had previously walked my soles off in Varanasi a year ago; my sense of direction was still there and I did not lose my way.

We managed to get back to the hotel and joined the group for the evening boat ride (this was something that I did not do during my previous trip). The boat started out from Raj Ghat and slowly traverse downstream, passing by numerous ghats which I still have fond memories of. Stopped at Dasaswamedh Ghat for the touristy ganga aarti ceremony. Though the show looked exactly the same, it still impressed people who were seeing it for the first time; just like how it impressed me when I was here last year.