A great night's sleep was followed by a much-needed hot shower, and to top that I was even served marmalade with my toast for breakfast. Perhaps I need to snap out of enjoying these comforts so much. I kicked off the day with some sight-seeing, starting with the Raj Mahal complex. Though the buildings are in good condition structurally, there are few remaining traces of the paintings and hanging decorations that once adorned them. It was the same story in the Jahangir Mahal, though here there were some of the original blue tiles that had covered the facade. The town of [View Full Entry]

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A 5:30AM rise, and there was no hot water. A $70 per night hotel in India that has no hot water! I complained bitterly about this at the reception, and demanded an explanation. I was told it would be forthcoming by e-mail. My next gripe followed hot on the heels of this one. I had been told yesterday that a (daytime) rickshaw to the station should cost Rs 15. Even taking into account the earliness of the hour, there was no way it should cost Rs 50 - which was the price quoted by the driver, after he had been summoned [View Full Entry]

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Despite ye olde bowels still being far from healthy, I managed to down some bananas this morning, which will supposedly assist my recovery. I was also lucky that the hotel (for Rs 100 commission) purchased my onward train ticket for me, which saved me the rickshaw trips to/from the station, plus no doubt a ton of waiting time at Lucknow's notoriously busy reservations counter. With that potential headache resolved, I decided to head out for a spot of sight-seeing. If Westerners know anything about Lucknow, it's that it was the site of a mutiny in 1857, in which 3,000 British and [View Full Entry]

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Due to various delays, the train journey stretched by 2 hours to 13.5 hours, which was not welcome in my weakened state. I'd chosen the most luxurious hotel of my trip so far for my stay in Lucknow - the $70 per night Gemini Continental. Though it was in good condition and in some ways bore a resemblance to American motels, it was no better than the place I had stayed in in McLeod Ganj, which had cost less than half the price. Additionally, the restaurant and laundry were both significantly more expensive than anywhere I've stayed. Once more, I was [View Full Entry]

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I discovered a couple of reasons why the room was so cheap. One is that the main road is by no means the quietest thoroughfare in the world, at any time of the night. The proximity of the railway station doesn't help matters either. And the hot water system is another one to add to the collection - you can't run the hot and cold water at the same time (the hot water slows to a drip if you do), so you have to half-fill your bucket with hot water, then moderate the temperature with the cold. Naturally it took a [View Full Entry]

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Today was an inter-city travel day that mercifully only took 1.25 hours, by bus to Haridwar. The bus itself was virtually empty so I was able to sprawl out on a seat. Such moments are to be treasured. Haridwar is a holy site for Hindus, as it represents the point where the Ganges comes out of the hills and begins its journey eastward across the plains. I'd been unable to get hold of any hotels yesterday, so this marked the first town I've arrived in with no accommodation pre-booked, but I soon found one of the hotels that had a good [View Full Entry]

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I wasn't too full of beans when I got up at 10AM, but there was admin to be done which brooked no laziness. I drew a skeleton map of the area, showing just the bus station and the hotel, and asked the reception guy (who spoke good English) to fill in i) the railway station, ii) an Internet cafe, and iii) an optician. His initial response was to tell me where the tourist information office was, but that seemed an unnecessary detour so I pressed him again. Unfortunately that proved to be a mistake. He positioned the railway station on the [View Full Entry]

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I'd had some very tasty mango juice as part of my lunch at the hotel yesterday, so I thought I'd try the orange juice today. However what arrived in the glass resembled the contents of a fluorescent marker, and certainly had not originated in an orange. I do need to boost my fruit intake. Today was another uneventful one, with a final wander around McLeod Ganj being the limit of my ambition, before catching the 6PM overnight bus to Dehra Dun. The hotel had done a good job of confusing the hell out of me regarding how to actually get the [View Full Entry]

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It took me a while to get off to sleep last night, due to the racket being generated by the group that seems to have occupied every other room on the floor. Until about 1AM, they were running up and down the corridor, shouting, singing, and slamming doors. Some of them still seemed to be under the impression that my room was part of their booking, so I had numerous rings of the bell and knocks on the door. In a complete break with tradition, and inspired by the surroundings, I decided to adopt a policy of tolerance, so I switched [View Full Entry]

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I was woken up at ~9AM by a strange woman pressing the doorbell, then banging on the door, then trying to force the door open. I assumed it was housekeeping, but in actual fact it was a member of some other party here who had got her room numbers confused. Depending on who she was expecting to find in the room, me shouting "I'm still in bed" might have been more of an encouragement than a deterrent, but she eventually went away. I wandered along to Tsug Lakhang temple again, figuring it would be a peaceful haven for some Yuletide contemplation. [View Full Entry]

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