My adopted family
Rudely awoken this morning by the lightbulb in the lamp above the bed falling out. Narrowly missed husband's head but that was his fault for taking up all the space as usual. Bleary-eyed, we ate our breakfast in occasional darkness as the electricity cut out intermittently. I'd made the sensible decision to skive off again today and catch up on my writing/reading/lazing while Mark cycled round the wetland sanctuary on a bike, hopefully avoiding the tiger who's recently been found roaming the area. When the bird guide arrived, they pedalled off into the sunrise and I, happily, went back to bed.
After a somewhat painful shower (good pressure but only 3 jets worked), I managed to get my hair into something vaguely presentable so went hunting for the hallowed wifi access. Yes, they did have it but it sadly wasn't strong enough for my iTouch to even register. I decided to sit outside anyway and catch up on my blog as the gardens looked rather lovely and it wasn't too hot. I'd taken my camera along and ended up chasing butterflies round the marigolds and bouganvilla much to the amusement of the staff. Our friendly waiter from the night before came out to tell me I could go anywhere in the garden - good job really as I'd already traipsed all over it!
I nipped back inside to see if I'd have any better luck with the landline internet but nope, I just managed to log on to my email and send a 'quick' message before it all became too much for the poor thing. Using the PC in the owner's office did mean I got to watch the live CCTV footage of the naan being made in the kitchen whilst typing. Jo, our trip organiser, had called the hotel the day before and 'pre-warned' them that I'd probably be hanging out there during the day. As a result, the owner told me they all wanted me to feel totally at home and like one of their family, which was awfully nice I thought!
Back outside, my now favourite waiter came to see if I fancied some lunch - yes please, I said and could he recommend something. Once he twigged I wanted only Indian food, things kicked up a notch - think this must be his specialist subject on mastermind. In the end, I had to stop him bringing me more plates although I did say yes to the homemade yoghurt - offered in case the curry was too spicy for me. It wasn't and my word, it was all manner of good!
As was my want, I popped back to our room after my late and corpulent lunch, for a small siesta to await husband's return - assuming he hadn't met the stray tiger that is.
Luckily he hadn't, although they had found some very sizeable pug marks. He'd also seen a nice black goat with a fetching red posing pouch over it's udders. Oh, and some more birds but not the looked-for nightjars alas.
There were two workmen up ladders outside our room whilst I slept, who were hanging bird pictures on the wall. As we wandered down for dinner, we admired their final handiwork. They had used all their creative talents and the resultant groupings were probably the most original ever produced in the field of art. No two groups had the same layout but best of all, not one picture was level and thinking about it, some even overlapped. The Tate Modern would snap these guys up for sure.
The waiter had promised me muttar paneer for tea but in the end made me my favourite - butter masala paneer. I'd managed to winkle a recipe of sorts from him, with the aid of some righteous flattery, earlier in the day and promised to have a go at making it back in the UK. To our utter horror, we spotted that the only other couple eating that night, were having spaghetti bolognese - what a total waste and of course, they just had to be Brits!
After a couple of beers, we absconded to our room and treated ourselves to some TV in bed. Well, when I say treated, it was more a case of how can we stop ourselves going to sleep at 8.30pm kind of thing. With a bit of channel trawling, we found the Indian versions of Ant & Dec, (complete with large forehead and floppy hair respectively) but eventually settled on 'G-Force' so fell asleep to guinea pig mayhem.