Varanassi 13th May

Liverpool F.A. Cup Winners 2006!

I woke early this morning, real early. I looked at my watch and it was 03:20, I wanted to get up and see the sunrise over the Ganga, but it was a little early even for that. I tried to nod back off to sleep for a couple of hours but couldn’t, so I listened to my ipod for two hours and got up at 05:30. I then noticed that the clock on my ipod showed 09:00. I checked the time on my mobile phone and sure enough it said that it was 09:00, somehow my watch had lost time during the night, although it was still working. Maybe it’s the work of the Gods….

I had an action packed day planned, that is to say I had to find somewhere to watch the Liverpool v West Ham F.A Cup Final match and do a bit more research on Nepal. My hotel doesn’t have any TV’s, so they couldn’t help me, I tried several other hotels and those that did have TV’s didn’t have the sports channels. My best bet was going on the Internet and finding a link to a site that is broadcasting the game.

I took a walk down the Ghats in the late morning and managed to find a quiet Ghat, well it was quiet until I sat down. Then half of the town descended on me and I didn’t get a moments peace. The first person to come by was a little kid who looked about four although he was probably six or seven, and he brought with him two water buffalo, who proceeded to sh1t and p1ss on the steps about five feet in front of me. The kid then started hitting the buffalo with a bit of bamboo cane he was carrying and they scuttled off to join their mates in the Ganga. Next came his dad (I presume) who proceeds to have a ‘sword’ fight with his son and they were both screaming at each other. Next I had some guy come over and ask me if I liked massages and he offered me a free one! Politely declined, I hasten to add.. I left after about five minutes.

I’ve noticed that all the people in this town are pretty small, compared to me anyway. In Delhi and especially Rajastan, people are pretty tall and even taller that me (I’m only six foot tall), but here, I’m at least half a head or a head taller than most people, just shows that all that swimming in the Ganga does no good.

I went to the Internet café at 19:00 and checked the BBC Radio website and they said that they were doing live commentary of the match, so I double clicked on the link and made the connection. I then got a pre-recorded message telling me that ‘due to contractual obligations’ they weren’t streaming the content on the Internet. I checked one of the Liverpool message boards and I got a link to the game from China, which was showing the game but with Chinese commentary. I clicked on the link and downloaded the software, and as the download completed the power went off!

I just wasn’t destined to watch / listen to this game. I spoke to the guy in the café and he told me that his generator had been running all day and he can’t switch it on this evening because it’s overheating. He told me to wait an hour and the power would be back on. I had a beer and waited. I tried to call my brother, Owen, in Ireland but I kept on getting a message saying ‘call rejected’. The same happened when I tried to call my brother Daniel, in London, so I put my phone away and chatted to the owner as we waited for power to be restored. I tried to ring Owen again and noticed that I had a missed call (no details who called though), I hadn’t heard my phone ring because of the noise of the traffic, but had a feeling it could have been from Owen updating me with the score.

As we were sitting outside the café some guy came up to me and said, “mosquito, inside”. I didn’t have a clue why he was telling me about mosquitos at this stage as I’d been sitting there for forty-five minutes by then, but I followed him inside. Next think I know, a tractor is coming down the road followed by a big cloud of mosquito repellent. Apparently, once or twice a month the Town Council (or whatever they have here) decides to spray the town with mosquito repellent. Varanassi is over five thousand years old (they say it’s the oldest city in the world) so they probably have plenty of experience of dealing with mosquitos.

The power came on just after 20:00, which meant that I had missed the first hour and twenty minutes, so I quickly went to the BBC website to check the score. There was a problem with the connection and the page wouldn’t open, so I had to re-boot (and I really did feel like booting the computer) and after another five minutes I was able to see the score. Liverpool 2 – 3 West Ham! I was gutted, 2-3 down with nine minutes to go. I know we specialise in Great Cup Finals ™, but I really thought that we’d run out of luck on this one. I opened another browser window and went to a Liverpool chat site and discovered that we had just equalised through Stephen Gerrard in added time and that the game was still very much on. Owen rang and asked if I was watching the match (I wish) and as I was explaining to him what I had gone through, and just after he warned me that his phone might die, his phone died!

I followed extra time on the website but the power went just as the game was ending! I couldn’t believe it, I really wasn’t meant to watch this game! I quickly (for India) settled my bill and tried to find another Internet café to follow the penalty shoot out. It took me fifteen minutes to find a place that was open and the game was well and truly over by then, but I had to know the score as there was no way I was going to sleep wondering if we’d won or not. It was with great trepidation that I clicked onto the BBC website. LIVERPOOL HAD WON! 3-1 on penalties, goooo ooooonnnnnn! Superb! What a season, real progress made in the Premiership, Super Cup and F.A. Cup winners. Onwards and upwards!