Text 19363, 79 rader
Skriven 2014-11-14 05:19:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Asia 278
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The Cafe Corner is the ground floor of the hotel. It seemed
a convenient choice, and what's to distinguish one place
from another, and we could settle up in dollars at the end
of our stay, which seemed (and was) easy and sensible.

I had a chicken curry with rice that was tasty but almost
devoid of spice. A little dish of hot peppers fixed that up
nicely; the meal came with a very pretty salad that I was
sad to see go to waste, but better safe, et cetera.

Signature whisky is identifiably whisky.

Lilli had spaghetti napoletana, which came smothered in
mozzarella. For some reason I did not ask for a taste; but
she said it did the job, as did a respectable red wine that
I suspect was made in India.

We had a corner room up on the top, smallish, with odd
treacherous little curbs that made it hard to go to the
bathroom without stubbing your toes at least once. Tiny
cotlike beds equipped with coarse blankets that at least
did the job.

A pretty cold night, close to frost. They'd offered portable
gas heaters for an additional cost, but we figured we would
survive, plus there was the question of monoxide poisoning.

Overnight much auditory evidence of intoxication down on the
square, plus tons of the faithful or mischievous ringing the
famous bell, whether for merit or for giggles it's hard to
say but irrelevant to us as we huddled with our heads
beneath our barely sufficient covers.

Next day dawned clear and chilly.

The shower had no divider from the rest of the bathroom, so
you risked wetting the whole room when you used it. Not a
big deal, but the fact that the bathroom window didn't close
was, as it is difficult to take even a hot shower when the
ambient is 35F. The water heater was an Indian knockoff of a
Japanese brand; it did work, so no complaints there.

Downstairs, an American-style breakfast of eggs and toast
and jam. No meat, which was fine.

For the day's outing we walked pretty much through the whole
town, including the oldest part, Dattatraya Square, which
though picturesque was mostly pretty decrepit, many of the
buildings in danger of crumbling. Also a jaunt out of town
just to see what there was (pretty much nothing, and the
temple shown on the map, our excuse for doing so, was 
modern and not very attractive). After marveling at how
some of these extremely poor people lived, we decided to
take a closer look at Durbar Square, clearly the heritage
that made this entire town a World Heritage Site.

We got to the National Art Museum in the early afternoon,
the significance being that the electricity was off, and it
was too dark for me to see just about anything, as all the
shades were shut, sensibly, to protect the art. Some of the
other tourists had cleverly brought flashlights or had used
an iPhone app to illuminate the paintings, so all was not
lost, just most, as they tended not to mind having people
look over their shoulders. On the whole, I didn't get a
whole lot out of this visit, though. And the grapes were
sour, anyhow.

After that, we braved going past the man with the machine
gun and through the Golden Gate, out to the Hindu temple
and its water tank, all pretty interesting with primitive
carvings that make them look older than they are (they
date to the 16th and 17th century only). You are not
allowed to actually enter the worship area unless you
profess Hinduism, but I had my doubts about some of the
people I saw going in.

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