We like cheap food, and in a town full of budget restaurants, Gulshan is the cheapest.
It is seemingly run by a group of highly intelligent 10 year olds – you will be served by one of the many kids that work there on your visit, and might not encounter any adults at all. Their English is phenomenal and they are great to talk to.
The restaurant has a good rooftop view over the other rooftops, and has a very rustic feel, especially when the electricity cuts out and you have to eat by candle light. Best of all are the prices: 25 Rps for a veg Thali, 30 Rps for a veg curry, 5 Rps for a cup of chai, and just 25 Rps for a Western breakfast, including coffee. Two people can have a feast here for well under a pound.
Sounds good to me!
We were dropped off at Saai by our very friendly rickshaw driver (I am fairly certain he did not get a commission because the price is so cheap, but if he did, fair play to him), and, after haggling the price down to 250 a night agreed to stay. The building is charming: the insides are painted bright pink, with flowers and plants everywhere and plenty of sunlight. The rooftop view of the Taj Mahal is also very special.
The room is a bit on the small side, but the bed was big and we had our own bathroom. Hot water is on demand (ask at the desk and then wait 20 minutes), and the location can’t be beat. The area is noisy, however. But you can expect to be woken by the muezzin call wherever you stay, so we can’t take points off for that.
8/10
Mohit’s had one thing going for it, and one thing only – it was cheap. We walked around a dozen or so hotels in the Paharganj area, being quoted, almost universally, 400 rupees per night. Finally we found Mohit, hidden away down an alley off the Main Bazaar (near Rak International Hotel). We were quoted 250 a night, and budget was a bigger concern than cleanliness.
I have written at length about some of the squalid hell holes we have stayed in, and Mohit’s features fairly high on that list. It was dark, dank, and disgusting: the sheets looked fit for cremation and prompted us to buy our own, the toilet clearly hadn’t been cleaned since Independence, and we were frequently disturbed by a very creepy, often stoned, employee asking us for cigarettes or trying to sell us all manner of things.
Hot water comes in a bucket, about one hour after you ask for it, and costs 10 rps. But it was really cheap, and we are really poor
… 4/10
If you like little furry friends, this is the place for you. We heard our little friend scuttling across the room in the middle of the night, and saw him scurry under our door. Luckily Mickey didn’t make a beeline for out biscuits, and caused no real problems at all. The lack of electricity, on the other hand, was a bit of a pain, but not the hotel’s fault – nowhere in town had power. The downside of this was the toilets: we opted for the outside loo, and it was pitch black, even during the day. Squatting in the dark isn’t easy!
Food was cheap, but I think the nearby Three Foxes restaurant was better, and the location is fine. The staff were very friendly, but don’t be fooled by the LP’s description of a ‘charming courtyard’- it is just a plain concrete yard.
6/10
The cheapest place we found in Sauhara, we were taken here first by the unavoidable tout at the bus station and, although we didn’t like the location that much (across some scrub ground at the north end of the main strip), we ended up coming back after a fruitless search for cheaper/better.
The room was pretty basic and, although kitted out with western fittings, the bathroom was a let down – there was not hot water at any time of day, even though solar heating was supposedly installed, and the toilet seat was much too small for the toilet rendering it completely useless.
The owner of this place was a bit of a Del Boy – always on the lookout to sell us something, and too smarmy for his own good.
Pretty average: 5/10
Beachy Goodness!
Sometimes I am a little too hard on the guidebooks. Sure, they occasionally point you to some disappointing attractions and towns (Chitrakut? Don’t bother), and often a recommendation leads to massive price hikes in restaurants and hotels, but you sometimes find a complete gem that you would never have discovered on your own. For us, the gems we have fallen head over heels in love with are the Andaman Islands. Before coming to India we had never heard of them, and, truth be told, if they were not mentioned in the LP, chances are we would have missed them altogether. And that would be tragic.
The Andamans offer a slice of paradise India style. Goa might have been the sunseeker’s beach of choice in the Sixties, but times have changed and the Andamans are the place to catch some rays, snorkel, dive, fish, and generally do nothing in the sun in the Teenies. Located in the Bay of Bengal, closer to Myanmar than to India, this collection of islands offer white sand beaches, azure blue skies, turquoise seas, and lush green rainforest. They are, without exaggeration, tropical paradise.
Read the rest of this entry »
Just click on the
gallery page!
As I
previously explained, India is a country that provokes extreme reactions. In the weeks that I have been here, I have simultaneously loved and hated the country. As to which emotion I feel most strongly about India, I reserve judgement until we leave, when I can tally up the number of moments that have made my skin crawl, against the times when India has crawled under my skin and left me in awe.
I have already expounded upon the not-so-nice elements, so let me wax lyrical about the India that can take your breath away.
Read the rest of this entry »
March 23rd,2010
India |
No Comments
We spent a lot of our time in Pokhara in Laughing Buddha, enjoying at least two meals a day there, every day. It was not just the prices that kept us coming back; the family that own the restaurant are charming, the food tasted amazing, the portions were huge, and the place had real atmosphere when it was candle lit during the nightly power-cuts.
Highlights of the menu include n enormous spinach and mushroom lasagne, with bread and salad, Swiss Rosti (amazing cheesey/potatoey gooey deliciousness), and the simple breakfast, all costing less than 90 pence. For a real treat, try the grilled fish (a whopping 1.10 pounds!).
Laughing Buddha can be found on the North end of Lakeside, near Sweet Memories and Newari Kitchen. Not to be missed.
10/10
Pokhara is bursting with guest houses, and we looked around a few before settling in Pushpa, as much out of fatigue as anything else – the price and standard of rooms seems to be similar across the board. Rooms cost from 300 to 700 rupees with western en-suites with good hot water showers. More expensive rooms have TVs and nicer furnishing, but as always we opted for cheapest and least cheerful. There isn’t much of a garden to speak of, but rooms are clean and in slightly better condition than some of the other places we looked at, and the location is good (just down a sidestreet south of centre point).
We met some American ladies that had been coming here for the past 10 years and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. We’d have given it more points, but unfortunately the owners tried to short change us twice when we were checking out. Poor show. 6/10
