...and that place is called Puri.
Never have I been so relieved in my life. Varanasi was a complete and utter nightmare for me. Yes, it has a lot of beauty, and it is a hugely spiritual place, but for us, all the hassle wasn't worth it.
Caught an overnight train to Puri which wasn't quite up to the same standards as our previous train to Varanasi. It smelled a fair bit, the canteen was quite iffy and the AC was decidedly average. It wasn't hugely bad though, and it was quite amusing flicking cockroaches at the poor innocents in the bunks below. Oh come on people, it was a 23 hour trip - what else are we supposed to do to amuse ourselves?? There's only so many Sukodo puzzles you can do.
The train journey was actually supposed to take 21 hours - which is just about bearable, bordering on when I start chewing my toenails and rocking back and forth. However, it was delayed by 2 hours - made worse by the fact that we didn't bring any food with us bar a few biscuits and some underripe bananas. You can buy food at the stations, but the problem is you can't verify how fresh and bacteria-free it is. So the biscuit-banana-water diet it was, all the way to Puri.
As you can tell, we survived - although it was a bit hit and miss with Lydia at one point. I thought she was going to have to be restrained and put on Prozac for the last hour.
Anyway, we're at Puri - our hotel is EXCELLENT. Our room is huge, you could do laps of it, they provide mosquito nets so we can give ours a break. Funny thing, all the middle rate hotels we stay at never have hot water - but the low rate ones do...
Went out for dinner at the Mickey Mouse restaurant just opposite our hotel. Food was great! Puri is reowned for it's seafood - so I had a prawn, egg, tomato and cheese burger with potato wedges. We've eaten so little for the past 4 weeks that it took all my effort to polish it off. Food has never tasted so good.
Today we're going to check out the town, hit the beach and probably organise trips to Chilka Lake and Konark. If you don't hear much from me in the next few days I'm not dead, just chilled.
Speak soon, people!
Caroline xx
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3 comments:
Thank goodness you both got out of Varanasi in almost one piece - though Lydia sounds a pretty smelly companion. I'm suprised you were allowed to take tea in a posh hotel covered in 'whatever'! Keep notes on everything and when you get back write a 'Roughing it' Guide to India!
I'm pretty bored with Suduko too, that cockroach-flicking game sounds fun - what are the rules?
Mum x
Basically let a bag of cockroaches loose in a carriage, wait till they crawl within a few inches of you - then flick them at your neighbours or any innocent passer-by.
5 points for a body shot
10 points for a head shot
30 points if it goes in their mouth
50 points if you hit the ticket man
100 points if you eat the cockroach
-10 if you miss completely
-50 if it goes out of the window
-100 if you accidently hit yourself
Copyright of Caroline and Lydia
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