22nd November 2015 - Varanasi to Kanpur

We had no intention to stop at Kanpur, our original intention was to drive straight from Varanasi to Agra. However, when we realised that it gets dark quite early as winter draws close we thought it better to include one more stop between Agra and Varanasi. Kanpur was the candidate.

Allahabad was on the way to Kanpur but too close to Varanasi to merit a night stop. So Kanpur it was.  The drive from Varanasi to Kanpur was rather uneventful, the roads were good but nothing to write about. The people remain the same the only thing that separates them is the distance, the same careless attitude, whether it be lorries, cars, pedestrians, it is not that they do not care for their lives but the need is to demonstrate courage and arrogance and believe that nothing will happen. So what if a few people lose their lives in trying to prove that they do not care?

The Allahabad Bye Pass is a long one and almost at its end is a bridge over the Sangam.

Kanpur as a city does not impress, it is dirty, crowded and very very dusty and carried on its shoulder the disdain and arrogance and who the heck are you? Attitude. At a traffic signal we heard a loud siren and started moving towards the left to make what we thought would be an ambulance or a police car. What came was neither, it was Mahindra XUV 500 and at the flag post in front of the car was a political party’s flag.

The roads that we had to navigate to our hotel did not leave us with a deep impression of the city, it was much like Varanasi, Gaya and this was no great surprise as we were not expecting much from this city.

Though a Sunday some traffic signals did have lot of traffic and actually in one we had to wait for over 40 minutes to move.

We decided not to move out of the Hotel.