Asia 2006: Random Bozo goes to Maharashtra

I had one of the most relaxing parts of my travels here in Pune. The pattern of the day would be

1. wake up
2. shower
3. stroll down MG road to buy a newspaper from a vendor with whom I got friendly
4. then blog to my heart's content in a cybercafé
5. return to the hotel for lunch and watch cricket until the second daily power-cut
6. go out and do something interesting and/or touristy. This should not be taken to mean that cricket is uninteresting!
7. then return to the hotel for an evening meal and a beer (usually australian - yay!).

I learned here not to trust Kingfisher lager because they add glycerine for extra smoothness and a little about the fearsome contrasts between rich, high-tech india and the rural, usually poor majority.

Original diary entry

Woke to sounds of children playing around 9.20. Put clean clothes on my manky body. Run to bus station, find I've forgotten my lock, so run back to hotel, collect lock then run back. Bus still there. Woman conductor wearing uniform shirt over pink shalwar khemise and blue headscarf.

(I was travelling back to Aurangabad to get a bus to Pune.)

Autorickshaw to station, visit ATM. Get painted for Holi by some lads who are wondering along the road. (Holi seems to be a great fun part of Hinduism. You can read about it here. I read in Pune newspapers about attempts to introduce more environmentally-friendly colours. Have a look at this.) Take 2pm 'semi-luxury' (i.e. softer seats) coach to Pune. We do 60 km in 1 hour then get a 20 minute comfort break at a 'service station'. Somewhere along the road, we pass a circular tower of turds. On the bus, I'm sat next to a women who works at a hospital, counselling HIV patients. She gives me their office number when I say I'm looking for something to do with the rest of my currently useless life.

In the evening, I get a kingfisher lager with my food - in the Grand Hotel's* beer garden. (The room is a lockable partition in the building. The walls don't reach the ceiling so I'm very glad I brought a chain and so can padlock my kit to the bed, as well as ensuring it can't be opened. However, I get the feeling this is an unnecessary precaution.)

*The Grand is incredibly friendly and deservedly popular with travellers and locals alike. The locals treat it as their local and are happy to mingle and drink with travellers and tell them tales of Pune. It's at the north end of MG Road, near Dr Ambedkar Statue (on the section of MG road that is north of the fabulously expensive Aurora Towers hotel) and can be phoned on +91 8284 213 093.