Elusive waterfalls and gearboxes

Our friend Evan suggested we meet him at a waterfall that he'd heard was in a national park south of Varanasi but didn't know the name of, or have any other details of. He thought it was at the end of the road going into the park, and when our guesthouse owner confirmed there was a waterfall about 50 Km south from Varanasi and gave us the name on a piece of paper, the decision was made! Evan would ride his motorbike there and we (along with our friend Leo) would take the bus. What could go wrong?

Well, lots it seems!

Strike 1 - The bus driver WOULD NOT stop blowing the horn. And it wasn't your normal annoying Indian horn. It was an annoying Indian horn that had been cranked up to maximum volume and then amplified even further. Every. Beep. Hurt. We spent most of the way taking turns to put our fingers in Gypsy's ears!! Who, being the travel-accustomed child she is, some how managed to fall asleep!


Strike 2 – As we left Varanasi, the inability to find 4th gear in the bus and the never-ending grinding of gears became more and more frequently heard over the horn… Then we started to slow down even further as 3rd gear stopped working… By the time we got off the bus, it was maybe going 20km/hr?.. The 50 km from Varanasi took just under 3 hours….

Strike 3 – When we were told to get off the bus, it was at a chai stall by a dusty main road.. No National Park and no Evan in sight.. The chai lady directed us to a small path that lead to the waterfall and it was okay. Certainly nothing to travel 3 hours each way to see though!!

After another chai, and another failed attempt to get internet reception to contact Evan, we found out that the bigger waterfall was a 5km walk away down a dirt track to the other side of the chai stall. Of course it was! I mean, who needs signs anyway? It makes perfect sense that the chai lady had presumed we wanted to see the small, barely flowing waterfall, and not the big, apparently impressive one! Feeling hot, hungry and exhausted we decided to not walk the 10km return, and instead sat by the road waiting for the next bus back.

We were making good time on the new bus when, all of a sudden, we stopped… Along with about 50 trucks, 7 other buses, cars and tuktuks… This didn’t seem like a quick pitstop. Roh went investigating and found a truck completely blocking the road, with about 80 Indian men standing around staring at it’s axel…

And there they stood.. staring at the axel and waiting for it to magically fix itself for about 1 and a half hours.. In 37 C heat..

At one point our bus tried to turn around. Atleast that's what we think it was trying to do. It failed either way and also ended up across the road blocking other traffic. The bus driver didn’t appear concerned.  

Suddenly, a tow truck appeared and with it, everyone ran back to their trucks and buses, started their engines and started jostling for poll position, to be the first vehicle to pass the truck and get going again.. Which meant that on both sides of the trucks, vehicles were trying to overtake the other vehicles on the wrong side of the road. So even after the truck was moved, nothing could get through at all! It was like a Mexican standoff of the automobile kind. 

By the time we eventually got back to Varanasi it was almost 5pm!! Considering we left at 9am and didn’t even see the waterfall, or Evan for that matter! It was quite the adventure!!