Ken woke in the night at three am and noticed that his vision was much worse and his eye seemed more swollen. He was worried about whether flying with a swollen eyeball was safe (ie would the reduced atmospheric pressure cause further swelling and damage) and wondering if he should be going back to the hospital since things seemed to be getting worse. We called Dr Varma again and left her a message asking these questions. She replied by email that flying was safe and that we needn't make another hospital visit until we got there.

The Shroff Eye Centre was supposed to call us back at 8:00 am with an appointment time, so when we had not heard from them by 9 we called them. We couldn't get an appointment for today because our flight arrives after they close, so we booked for first thing tomorrow morning.

Then we showered and packed our bags so we'd be ready to go to the airport at 1:00. With no other urgent business to attend to we watched the monkeys outside the window and then went for one last stroll on the ghats. 
 
We headed south, which is the area we'd explored the least on previous days.

As always, there was neat stuff to see along the way...

More cows.

More monkeys.

More laundry drying on the ghats.
 
Debris from cremations at Harishchandra Ghat with a body ready to go on a cremation pyre

Men fishing (for the fish that live in a soup of human feces and eat human body parts)...yum!
   
 
Men clearing silt from the ghats using gas powered pumps and fire hoses like a hydraulic mining operation.


Every ghat has a lingam (phallic symbol representing Shiva) and a yoni (symbol of female sex organs), usually with the lingam positioned inside the yoni. We'd read about this but were having difficulty spotting them. Turns out they look more like something you'd use to squeeze orange juice than than like sex organs.
 
It must have been a slow day on the ghats because we got hassled more diligently than usual. Though when we told them we were leaving in a couple hours that at least made the boatmen leave us alone. Not so the post card vendors of the ladies begging for milk for their babies.

At the Asi Ghat we turned around and headed back. It's about as far south as you can go on the ghats anyway.

When we crossed the Harishchandra Ghat this time there was a cremation pyre going right on the walkway where you have to cross the ghat. We walked by within a few feet of the fire. Close enough that we could not help being enveloped in the smoke.

Strangely there was a professional film crew there with the family filming the cremation. Normally cameras are prohibited, so we figure they must have been hired by the family. When we got to a safe distance we turned around and took a photo ourselves.
 
Walked back to hotel, paid and checked out and followed the 'boy' from the hotel to the main street where he used a cell phone to call the driver from wherever he was waiting to come pick us up. This car was nicer than the one that brought us in from the airport. This one even had seat belts! The drive to the airport had very bad traffic and after an hour in the car we still had not reached the edge of the city. We were starting to worry we were not going to get to the airport on time. Fortunately things sped up a lot once we reached the edge of town and the rest of the trip only took 20 minutes.
 
At the airport we had to show our boarding pass and passport on the sidewalk, and then again at the door of the terminal. Then we had to go to these stand-alone baggage scanners where they sealed up our backpacks before we could take them to the airline counter. Then boarding pass and passport again at the counter, at the start of the line for the security screening, at the security screening, at the lineup to board the plane and finally at the gate at the top of the gangway. Are we 7 times more secure if every passport is checked 7 times?

Varanasi's runway is the worst I've ever seen. The taxi to takeoff was like driving down a rough road and we thought what a terrible taxi way. Then the plane did a U-turn and we realized we'd been driving down the runway itself. The takeoff was rough, and surprisingly similar to what turbulence in the air feels like.

When we arrived in Delhi the hotel had a car waiting for us, as we'd requested. The drive from the airport to the hotel was only 16 km but took an hour on busy traffic jammed freeways. The hotel is more expensive than the ones we've been staying in up to now in India ($73 per night, as compared to $25 - $40) and is very clean and spacious with good service and high-speed internet. More importantly, it's only a 5 minute walk from the Shroff Eye Center, so we can get to Ken's appointment in the morning easily.

We ordered supper from room service and stayed in, working on the travel blog and backing up our photos. It's so nice to have decent wifi for a change!