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 Orchha itself is small, consisting mainly of one street, with a sidestreet that opens up into the market square. The place is clearly established on the tourist trail, as I saw many groups of foreigners ... read more

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 British-sympathisers were put under siege in the Residency building by Indian soldiers - when they were finally relieved, only about 1,000 were still alive. Of course, the other view of this version of events is ... read more

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 visit to the front desk to have this explained. I also found out, painfully, that my new contact lens cleaning solution doesn't work in quite the same way as the product I buy at home. ... read more

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 right hand side of a crossroads, whereas in fact it was a good quarter of a mile away on the left hand side, he said there was an Internet cafe next door but I couldn't ... read more

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 on the TV and found myself watching "Freaky Friday", which didn't quite fit with my understanding of karmic payback. Due to the limited space available in my backpack, I decided to post home some bits ... read more