All right, here we go again. Tanked up at Allahabad. FE: 14.2 km/l. I took the wheel back again, and soon we're across the Ganga bridge and out of city limits. It was 9:30 am. Happy to find that the traffic was not as bad as I thought it would be. 35 km and we would be out onto dual carriageway again.
20 km out of town, we spotted the tail end of what appeared to be a very long traffic jam. Right lane was free, so I nosed in for a quick look. Nothing but two-wheelers coming through from the other side. Stopped one of them to ask, and learnt there's been an accident about 2 km ahead. There was no space for cars to go through.
Fortunately, the motorcyclist advised us to take a detour into a small lane on our right. And at the same time, a Qualis dived into the same lane. Without second thought, we followed. A narrow track zigzagging though the fields greeted us, and we followed the Qualis through umpteen twists and turns and across a level crossing.
And voila! We were back on the highway 5 km down the road. No traffic jams!
After the "Varanasi 19 km" marker, we started looking for a flyover, below which we would go, to follow the old highway again into Benaras city. There are no indication boards here or while approaching from the east, which is why btirthankar lost his way.
Once we were on the old highway (it was almost noon), we decided to take another P&T stop. This time it was a plastic-chaired "general store'.
Stepped out of the car into a furnace, the temperature outside was so hot after the chill of the freshly serviced AC in the car. The thirst for tea quickly changed to a thirst for freshly made 'lassi', and it was delicious.
The owner lives in a small house behind his shop, and obligingly let the ladies use the toilet inside. His business has plummeted in the last few years since the main bulk of traffic uses the expressway and doesn't bring custom to him. Therefore the conversion from 'dhaba' to 'general store'!
End of P&L stop, we crawled along the road and into Benaras. A few glimpses again of the NH-2 as it existed in the last decade.
BT had already warned us on the phone that there were no air-conditioned rooms available at the Rahi Tourist Bungalow run by UP Tourism. That's where he was staying, and he would be able to post more pics of the place. I have an old picture of that place from our last trip in Jan. '09, and here it is.
Now Rahi is a place I've stayed in over and over again, because it's located opposite the Benaras Railway Station inside a lane.
(The Benaras railway station)
Large space for car parking, no traffic noise at night. Clean, cheap, reliable. Since most of my trips have been in winter, I had never needed to look for an AC room before. I remembered a new hotel in the vicinity of Rahi, which had underground parking. So into the same lane we went, and pulled up at the Hotel Plaza Inn.
Ok, there were AC rooms available. Rs.1500 per room, plus taxes. We all love a bargain. My wife bargained. She bargained really hard. No, no, the guard outside didn't boot us out! He just kept standing in his fancy shoes.
Finally settled for Rs.1100 per room, inclusive of taxes.