Dun roaming

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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 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 see one on the entire street, and he did admit he didn't know where I could find an optician.

I managed to book a train ticket from Haridwar to Lucknow for a couple of days' time, but had little luck contacting any hotels in either location, partly because my RG had the wrong area code, and partly because the numbers were just plain wrong even with the correct area code. I think I'll just turn up in Haridwar and find somewhere, as I don't need anything brilliant, but Lucknow is where I'm spending New Year so I had to do some searching at an Internet cafe and eventually got through to one of the better hotels there. Unfortunately it doesn't look as though they have anything special laid on for New Year, but they do have a bar - will just have to hope it stays open until midnight.

In the afternoon, I went for a walk around Dehra Dun, which has no obvious redeeming features. I didn't see any other Westerners, though I did stumble upon an opticians who had some hard-to-come-by cleaning fluid for gas permeable lenses.

For dinner, I tried Kumar Veg, an RG recommendation. Though the place was spacious and clean, and even provided a (cotton) napkin, at one point there were 10 members of staff watching over 2 customers. And, as I provided more entertainment value than the other guy, I was watched for the entire meal. This wouldn't have been so bad if the food had been good, but the aloo gobi had been salted to the point where it could have been put in a time capsule with no ill effects for an opening in the next century, and the roti was more like a papadum in parts.

In an enormous moment of weakness on the way home, I bought a medium-sized fruit and nut bar, however I'm pleased to say it didn't do much for me.

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Comments

[Tom Cruise Jr.]

At this rate, you might end up looking like a twig by the time you leave India. I guess then you didn't bring any chocolate covered biscuits with you!

[Loy]

Why lucknow
Lucknow is the the most unlikely place to spend new years. What made you to time it that way. I would have thought calcutta would have been at least a better place if not the best.