Varanasi - Agra
In the end someone from the hostel booked our tickets & we gave him cash.
We might need to do some more long term bookings for our remaining time in India, plan our destinations, durations of time and then get a travel agent to book the transport.
With tickets now successfully bought, we say goodbye to our temporary home in Varanasi, Moustache Hostel & climb into a tuk tuk. The tuk tuk driver is pleasant & is a friend of the hostels so we should be safe from scams & being ripped off. The traffic is heavy & in some sections it is jammed. We have more than enough time to get to the bus station & arrive at 7.30pm with an hour to spare.
Finding the bus is easy with the help from a few friendly Indians & we are led to an area to wait before departure. Tom is asked to join some Indian men for a chat about Varanasi, India, Australia & life in general.
Stop number 3 in India is Agra, famous for the Taj Mahal, something we are super keen to see!
Getting to Agra has not been easy, specifically trying to book a bus or train ticket! After researching & following recommendations we had downloaded 3 different apps to book transport in India. We had problems with all 3 of these as well as websites, due to not having an Indian phone number or an accepted payment system. We found out 1 of these apps changed its terms & conditions only 2 days ago to only accept Indian bank accounts & cards. We decided to try get an Indian sim card so that we would have a current Indian contact number & could set up one of these apps for future us. We tried 5 different shops recommended to us by hostel staff but were unsuccessful in finding someone who would sell us a sim card.
In the end someone from the hostel booked our tickets & we gave him cash.
We might need to do some more long term bookings for our remaining time in India, plan our destinations, durations of time and then get a travel agent to book the transport.
With tickets now successfully bought, we say goodbye to our temporary home in Varanasi, Moustache Hostel & climb into a tuk tuk. The tuk tuk driver is pleasant & is a friend of the hostels so we should be safe from scams & being ripped off. The traffic is heavy & in some sections it is jammed. We have more than enough time to get to the bus station & arrive at 7.30pm with an hour to spare.
Finding the bus is easy with the help from a few friendly Indians & we are led to an area to wait before departure. Tom is asked to join some Indian men for a chat about Varanasi, India, Australia & life in general.
By 8.15pm the bus begins stowing luggage and boarding passengers. The operator who initially appeared very friendly asked a European tourist, who was in line in front of us, to pay extra money to stow his luggage underneath. He responded appropriately with outrage and asked us if we had ever encountered this before, which we hadn't. We start to discuss how viable this extra fee is and concluding our arguing points before the same operator walks up to us, apologises & says it's not required.
My god, everything feels like a bloody scam in this country, I feel like we will never stop being ripped off!
The bus is one of the newest, cleanest & most comfortable bus's we have been on while travelling. We both have sleeper tickets in a shared booth on the bottom bunk with a curtain, air con & light. Its easy enough to get comfortable & we use our sleeping back protectors on top of the vinyl mattress in replacement of linen which is not supplied. It's about a 10 hour journey & we should arrive after 6am.
The bus is one of the newest, cleanest & most comfortable bus's we have been on while travelling. We both have sleeper tickets in a shared booth on the bottom bunk with a curtain, air con & light. Its easy enough to get comfortable & we use our sleeping back protectors on top of the vinyl mattress in replacement of linen which is not supplied. It's about a 10 hour journey & we should arrive after 6am.
I'm hoping the driver is modest with the horn and we can get some sleep!
- Alli
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