Asia 2006: Random Bozo goes to Maharashtra

Walk to Wilson Point to watch the sunrise: yes, I was awake and moving before 6pm! Here's a panorama I've lashed together from some of my photos. After the sunrise, I bought a cup of ginger-enhanced khala chai from a vendor who had a wee stall on a handcart. (How did he get the water up here?) Of course, this stimulated my abdominal systems and I had to crawl into the undergrowth. Thank goodness I don't go anywhere without necessary supplies...

I went back to Haji Kwajabhai's shop to continue my Marathi martyrdom and met a chap called Virindra who's a local licenced taxi-driver/guide. We arranged for him to take me on one of the official tours of the more distant viewpoints, starting at 11am on Wednesday. He also spontaneously offered me an Rs50 discount on the official price of Rs350.

I ate lunch at a fairly upmarket place called 'Tinklers - the tastebud' and watched England's attempt to beat India's score in the first one-day international of this series. England were chasing 226, IIRC, and had plenty of overs to do so. However, after both Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pieterson were both out for just over 40 runs apiece (KP's innings included two beautiful 6s, IIRC), and Geraint Jones failed to score, the match was interestingly poised when the inevitable powercut finished my viewing. (Much later, a friend in the UK sent me the final score: England's tail enders just can't bat, while Harbajan Singh, after having been India's top run-scorer, had taken 5 wickets for a piffling amount of runs.)

While England were crumbling in the afternoon heat, I slept off my lunch and caught up on the miserable amount I'd slept last night. Every night in that hotel, there was a lot of shouting, banging and crashing until about 1am: it restarted around 6am, so I averaged around 5 hours' sleep a night in Mahabaleshwar.

I then searched for a restaurant that took either of my plastics because I was down to 50 rupees and the only bank I knew of was closed. No-where wanted to know but fortunately I met a magician* who showed me to an ATM (which isn't mentioned by my guidebook). I ate a Maharashran-style thali, accompanied by a strawberry juice somewhere, phoned a friend in the UK, found out I've become vaguely famous here for allowing someone to overcharge me and crashed out.

*I forgot to add that last night, I'd encountered a magician from Pune. We talked quite a lot. He tells me he's been all over Europe and had a show in a theatre here. He gave me a private show on the pavement, making all sorts of things (including my signet ring) disappear and reappear. We all know it's just sleight-of-hand (he insisted this himself) but it was truly brilliant.