What we did: switched hotels, trip planning, nice dinner
Budget: 3500 Rupees/$70; Spent: 3810 Rupees/$76
Today was a bit of a disaster. Nothing really went according to plan. We were switching to a better hotel today, so we had to pack up our stuff, eat breakfast, and checkout before 10am. That didn't happen.
We didn't have enough cash to pay for the hotel, so I went in search of an ATM, while Patty packed up our things. I was told that there was one by the city palace, and I knew where that was, so I headed in that direction. Our Lonely Planet book also had the location of an ATM marked on the map, which was near to the palace, so I assumed this was where I was being directed. It was about a 20 minute walk and I had to ask directions on a couple occasions, but I finally made it to an ATM. Unfortunately, it went out of service as I was using it. Great.
I asked a couple people about the nearest ATM and I was again being directed toward the palace. I was confused and a little skeptical that people knew what they were talking about, but I asked an auto-rickshaw driver and he said he could take me to one close to the palace. Turns out I had walked right by an ATM near the middle of my journey to the first ATM. Relieved, I got in line at the ATM, saw that people were taking out money, and waited. When it was my turn, I went through all the prompts only to have the ATM tell me that it could not proceed with the request. I tried again. And again. And again. Nothing.
At this point I'm panicking a little because I'm wondering whether the first ATM I tried to take money out of took money out of our account, but just didn't dispense the cash. So I was thinking maybe I was trying to withdraw more than our daily limit. I asked some more people about where to get money, but ultimately decided to discuss our options with Patty back at the hotel.
When I got back to the room, Patty was mostly finished packing, so we quickly finished and took our stuff downstairs so housekeeping could clean the room. We put our bags away in storage and considered our options. We checked our bank account to see whether it indicated that we had withdrew any money today. It didn't, but it probably wouldn't show up that quickly anyway. We thought that maybe it was just my card, so we decided to try Patty's at the ATM near the palace. Our back-up plan was to take an auto-rickshaw further into town where a number of banks are located.
So, we walked back to the palace and Patty tried with her card. Nothing. She tried several more times and even I tried again. Nothing. We were pretty concerned at this point. We got someone to drive us to the banking district, but on the way I spotted another ATM and asked the driver to pull over. I jumped out and jammed by card into the ATM, hoping against hope that it would work. And would you know it, it actually worked! This was a huge relief for us and we even managed the pay the driver less money than we had originally agreed upon, since he hadn't had to drive us so far.
We booked it back to the hotel, paid, and then headed for our new accommodations. Along the way, we met a man who was claiming to be selling marble carvings on the side of the street. Regardless of what they were actually made of, a couple were quite beautiful. Patty ended up bargaining him down to $5 and now we are the proud new owners of a beautifully carved elephant. It's difficult to explain what it looks like, so here's a picture:
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Afterward, we checked into our hotel and were pleasantly surprised to find they gave us a very large and well furnished room. It is our nicest hotel room by far in India, and up there for our entire trip. We decided to check out their rooftop restaurant and spent some time up there checking emails, working on the blog, and we grabbed a bit to eat.
We had booked a cooking class tonight at 5:30pm and the instructor had told Patty over the phone yesterday to "come hungry", so we ate more of a snack than a lunch. We then went down to our room because we were both feeling pretty tired. It was a late night last night and a busy morning (not to mention we basically hadn't slept at all the previous night) and it was all taking a toll on us. I sat on a window ledge that has a nice comfy mattress and pillow and wrote a couple blogs, while Patty did some trip research and then took a nap.
Around 5:30pm, we headed over to the cooking class, which happens to be located just around the corner from our hotel. Unfortunately, it turned out that there had been a mix-up with bookings. The cooking instructor was expecting three people, instead seven showed up. There was some confusion, and a little yelling, and finally Patty and I offered to do the cooking class in the morning of the 3rd. The cooking instructor, who was very grateful for our decision, put onto Patty's wrist herself three bracelets. It was a very sweet gesture.
Now that we had some time, we decided to do some trip planning. Our hotel manager showed us to a travel agent he recommends and we were able to book two train trips that we'll be on in the next week or so. We were also able to firm up our itinerary for the next couple weeks, which is always nice.
After this, we decided to check out a restaurant that is highly recommended by Lonely Planet. It is a little bit on the pricey side, but we hadn't really spent that much money yet today, so we threw caution to the wind and went straight there. The restaurant is located in a really beautiful hotel on the lake. I think we felt more at home in this restaurant than we have for weeks or months. Even the washroom was clean...and had soap and paper towel, which is like unheard of!
We ordered an Indian chicken dish and lasagna. The chicken was spectacular, although a somewhat small portion, but the lasagna wasn't very good. We are realizing that we should really just stick with Indian food while in India. The only thing Western they can do is breakfast...and they do it really damn good, I should mention.
For dessert, we ordered a cupcake with fruit and a brownie with ice cream and chocolate sauce. Without exaggeration, these were the best deserts I've ever had. The brownie was warm, the ice cream was smooth and creamy, there were nuts... And then the cupcake was something out of a dream. There was this syrup sauce for dipping the cupcake and fruit in that I can't even describe. It came with fruit that I think had been cooked a little, because the pieces were soft, but they were also seasoned with something that was absolutely amazing. My mouth is watering just writing about it.
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It's funny that although we ate in such a nice restaurant and had such a nice meal, we still paid about the same or less as we would if we went to a Moxies or Joey's back at home. Prices are so distorted here. Sometimes I have to remind myself to think of how much I would have to pay back home to get what we can get here to realize the value we are getting. If we doubled our budget in India, we could live like royalty.
On our way home, we passed by a small cafe, called Cafe Namaste, that is recommended by our book. We decided to stop there for a masala chai. Before we received our tea, was saw a little mouse under a table next to us. I have to hand it to Patty, she was pretty calm considering how terrified of mice she professes to be. It was pretty cute though. We waved our menus in its direction and it ran off. It came back a couple times, and even ran right behind me into a hole in the wall. It poked its head out of the hole a couple times and we waved it back in. It was a pretty hilarious experience. India is life-changing, no doubt about it.
Thankfully, our masala chai didn't taste like mouse and we had a great chat, while all manner of vehicle and animal, including several cows, passed by the open door in front of us. Not the quietest place in the world.
Back in our hotel room, Patty was determined to book a hotel in Mumbai, so she stayed up quite late researching, I think, every hotel in the entire city. She finally came to a decision and booked one. It's pricey, but that's the way big cities are. Hopefully it's decent.
Tomorrow we're off to Chittargar, which is supposed to be a city built on a plateau surrounded by 150 metre tall cliffs!
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