Well, this morning we had our last breakfast in Varanasi in the rooftop restaurant overlooking the Ganges. We're going to miss the place.
Its amazing how the most unprepossessing of the hotels we've stayed at so far has turned out to be the one we have enjoyed the most in terms of service and location. The decor is rubbish but the bed is wonderfully comfortable, plenty of hot water in the shower, the location is perfect, the guy who runs the restaurant is efficient, super friendly and the food/service has been consistently good (and they have beer, despite it showing on the bill as 'golden rice')!
I think Varanasi has surpassed Amritsar as our favourite place so far this trip. Life on the Ghats is different every day so it would be hard to tire of it and we really only scratched the surface of the back alleys with all their fascinating shops. We could easily have spent another couple of days exploring them.
Two of the 'boys' carried our cases the 1/4 mile to the road where our taxi met us and the Manager himself accompanied us to say goodbye.
I've just cleared the camera card and these are a few last minute memories of Varanasi
On our last day the street cleaners had started power hosing the pavements/Ghats directly outside our hotel so to avoid walking through the wet clay/silt we used different steps to reach our hotel. I saw movement in a dark recess/corner and we realised there were puppies sleeping there - seven in total. Mummy dog must be a very good parent to be raising so many and I hope she's finding enough food for them all
Washing being done in the river directly below our balcony
A colourful passerby although I'm not convinced she's Indian?
Goat in a coat! These are a bit out of focus as we were being frogmarched through the alleys by the guys carrying our cases on their shoulders ... but you can see how cute he/she looks
and the last couple of 'main' street shots before our taxi arrived
Our taxi driver spoke pretty good English and was obviously practicing his Tour Guide skills on us, pointing out places of interest along our route. He said that the unexpected late rains last month caused a lot of problems in Varanasi with many events being cancelled, tours being rescheduled and small businesses suffered as a result. Prime Minister Modi visited and promised aid in getting things up and running properly again.
Whilst we thought that the place was packed out on Tuesday for Dev Deepawali our driver said numbers were very much reduced but that they expect the usual large crowds next year. He also told us about another big festival that takes place in February and said we should visit Varanasi during that time. Its devoted to Lord Shiva who is considered to be closely associated with Varanasi which is why it is such a powerful spiritual place. Our driver was very proud of his city.
We left at 10am to ensure we'd have plenty of time to catch our flight at 2pm. S*ds law, we had a better (less congested) run to the airport so the drive was only 1 hour and then our plane was delayed. Varanasi airport (domestic departures bit) is very dated and didn't have any charging stations for phones/laptops. There was no wifi so we killed time by drinking chai and playing patience/solitaire on the phones .... which ran the batteries down dangerously low.
When we eventually got to Kolkata we left the airport meaning to organise a UBER cab which we'd been told would be about 400-450 rupees (about £4.50) for the hour long trip to our accommodation. The UBER app is only on David's phone and he couldn't get the wifi to work - the signal was too weak to book the cab. We couldn't go back inside the airport to organise a pre-paid cab so we were getting hassled by the taxi touts ... we've read some bad reports about the street taxis here and the touts are very pushy. Eventually a porter took pity on us and directed us to the Transport Police desk where a taxi despatcher was prebooking rides with a fleet whose logo is 'No Refusals'. He quoted 340 rupees and sent us off to find the car/driver. Poor Guy - he didn't really know where he was going and David's phone was out of charge so I was trying to show him the location on Google MAPS.
When we neared our destination I gave the driver our host's phone number and he 'talked us in'
We're staying at Serviced Apartments in Park Street, the High Street of Kolkata, and they're wonderfully placed within easy walking distance of loads of restaurants, local markets and tourist destinations. Its really a huge one-floor villa with a few private ensuite rooms.
Breakfast can be taken in the central dining area with other guests or in our room if preferred. There's a large comfortable communal lounge area, a laundry room and clothes drying area. Our room has the usual fridge and tea/coffee making facilities and also has a microwave should we want to get take-away food in. Its more relaxed than a glossy hotel.
The apartments/villa are on the 3rd floor and access is via a very old fashioned lift with double metal grille gates ....
It was nearly 7.30pm by the time we arrived and checked in with our hosts. They recommended a restaurant nearby that serves beer but when we got there the place was full and people were queuing outside. We were tired, hungry and didn't want to wait.
One of the people waiting outside suggested we walked a little further and ate at 'BBQ restaurant' ... we assumed this would be some sort of steak/kebab house but it was a very nice Chinese/Indian restaurant. The place was huge and just like a good old fashioned Chinese should look with dark wood and lots of red decorations - there were several floors with bars (and I assume kitchens on each one) We opted for Chinese food but obviously it was Chinese cooked in India by Indian chefs so had a spicy kick - delicious! Even though this was a pretty 'upmarket' restaurant the bill (including beers) was just 2100 rupees (£22) for the two of us and, not knowing the portion sizes, we'd over-ordered so there was a lot of food left. We were given the option of having a doggy bag 'to go' but declined the offer.
So Thursday was a bit of 'lost' day for us. I'd expected to have internet at the airport and to work on tidying up the Blog a bit. I'd noticed that Blogger/our travel laptop had been doing strange things and changing font colours/sizes etc., but most of the posts have been written in haste last thing at night so I haven't had a lot of time to sort these issues out. But it wasn't to be
Its amazing how the most unprepossessing of the hotels we've stayed at so far has turned out to be the one we have enjoyed the most in terms of service and location. The decor is rubbish but the bed is wonderfully comfortable, plenty of hot water in the shower, the location is perfect, the guy who runs the restaurant is efficient, super friendly and the food/service has been consistently good (and they have beer, despite it showing on the bill as 'golden rice')!
I think Varanasi has surpassed Amritsar as our favourite place so far this trip. Life on the Ghats is different every day so it would be hard to tire of it and we really only scratched the surface of the back alleys with all their fascinating shops. We could easily have spent another couple of days exploring them.
Two of the 'boys' carried our cases the 1/4 mile to the road where our taxi met us and the Manager himself accompanied us to say goodbye.
I've just cleared the camera card and these are a few last minute memories of Varanasi
On our last day the street cleaners had started power hosing the pavements/Ghats directly outside our hotel so to avoid walking through the wet clay/silt we used different steps to reach our hotel. I saw movement in a dark recess/corner and we realised there were puppies sleeping there - seven in total. Mummy dog must be a very good parent to be raising so many and I hope she's finding enough food for them all
Washing being done in the river directly below our balcony
A colourful passerby although I'm not convinced she's Indian?
and the last couple of 'main' street shots before our taxi arrived
Our taxi driver spoke pretty good English and was obviously practicing his Tour Guide skills on us, pointing out places of interest along our route. He said that the unexpected late rains last month caused a lot of problems in Varanasi with many events being cancelled, tours being rescheduled and small businesses suffered as a result. Prime Minister Modi visited and promised aid in getting things up and running properly again.
Whilst we thought that the place was packed out on Tuesday for Dev Deepawali our driver said numbers were very much reduced but that they expect the usual large crowds next year. He also told us about another big festival that takes place in February and said we should visit Varanasi during that time. Its devoted to Lord Shiva who is considered to be closely associated with Varanasi which is why it is such a powerful spiritual place. Our driver was very proud of his city.
We left at 10am to ensure we'd have plenty of time to catch our flight at 2pm. S*ds law, we had a better (less congested) run to the airport so the drive was only 1 hour and then our plane was delayed. Varanasi airport (domestic departures bit) is very dated and didn't have any charging stations for phones/laptops. There was no wifi so we killed time by drinking chai and playing patience/solitaire on the phones .... which ran the batteries down dangerously low.
When we eventually got to Kolkata we left the airport meaning to organise a UBER cab which we'd been told would be about 400-450 rupees (about £4.50) for the hour long trip to our accommodation. The UBER app is only on David's phone and he couldn't get the wifi to work - the signal was too weak to book the cab. We couldn't go back inside the airport to organise a pre-paid cab so we were getting hassled by the taxi touts ... we've read some bad reports about the street taxis here and the touts are very pushy. Eventually a porter took pity on us and directed us to the Transport Police desk where a taxi despatcher was prebooking rides with a fleet whose logo is 'No Refusals'. He quoted 340 rupees and sent us off to find the car/driver. Poor Guy - he didn't really know where he was going and David's phone was out of charge so I was trying to show him the location on Google MAPS.
When we neared our destination I gave the driver our host's phone number and he 'talked us in'
We're staying at Serviced Apartments in Park Street, the High Street of Kolkata, and they're wonderfully placed within easy walking distance of loads of restaurants, local markets and tourist destinations. Its really a huge one-floor villa with a few private ensuite rooms.
Breakfast can be taken in the central dining area with other guests or in our room if preferred. There's a large comfortable communal lounge area, a laundry room and clothes drying area. Our room has the usual fridge and tea/coffee making facilities and also has a microwave should we want to get take-away food in. Its more relaxed than a glossy hotel.
The apartments/villa are on the 3rd floor and access is via a very old fashioned lift with double metal grille gates ....
It was nearly 7.30pm by the time we arrived and checked in with our hosts. They recommended a restaurant nearby that serves beer but when we got there the place was full and people were queuing outside. We were tired, hungry and didn't want to wait.
One of the people waiting outside suggested we walked a little further and ate at 'BBQ restaurant' ... we assumed this would be some sort of steak/kebab house but it was a very nice Chinese/Indian restaurant. The place was huge and just like a good old fashioned Chinese should look with dark wood and lots of red decorations - there were several floors with bars (and I assume kitchens on each one) We opted for Chinese food but obviously it was Chinese cooked in India by Indian chefs so had a spicy kick - delicious! Even though this was a pretty 'upmarket' restaurant the bill (including beers) was just 2100 rupees (£22) for the two of us and, not knowing the portion sizes, we'd over-ordered so there was a lot of food left. We were given the option of having a doggy bag 'to go' but declined the offer.
So Thursday was a bit of 'lost' day for us. I'd expected to have internet at the airport and to work on tidying up the Blog a bit. I'd noticed that Blogger/our travel laptop had been doing strange things and changing font colours/sizes etc., but most of the posts have been written in haste last thing at night so I haven't had a lot of time to sort these issues out. But it wasn't to be
Absolutely love the goat in a coat, brilliant. Enjoy Kolkata (I’m assuming this is the Indian name for Calcutta?), looking forward to the further adventures of the Clinkers in India 2019, been great so far.
ReplyDeleteYep, its the Indian name for Calcutta. We try to remember Kolkata, Mumbai, but its difficult when we grew up learning about Calcutta, Bombay and Madras .... Sue x
ReplyDelete