Hotel Manglam Lucknow

... lane as in one lane for all directions. It was dark most of the way. The driver drove with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the horn. Manuel put on his dark glasses in the night so he couldn't see what was going on. This was quite an ezpperience. We stopped at truly ' the middle of nowhere for the driver to have a break and some dinner. The roadside place would not use electricity to ...

... and silent staring. Praying patiently for the journey to end. I just wanted to jump in a tuk-tuk and high speed it to a hotel and I'll be in heaven.

Although with hindsight. Being sick on a travel day, although highly inconvenient is very time efficient. No thats bollocks. It was like going to work with a hangover x10 with no option of a little phone call and a cough to get you out of dodge city.

... mins ....... no contest eh!! well there was one drawback!!!

This did mean us leaving Lucknow earlier than we had anticipated, like in a few hours, that didnt go down too well as we despertely needed to sleep, having been up since 5am and hadn't seen much here either,

ummm but on the other hand we weren't too bothered, we love Delhi and for 1000 rps....... bingo!! .... whereas Lucknow was all a bit too much of a city......very spread out ...

... the village helps each other out. We saw as they all bathed in a local well and washed each other, little girls washing the hair of their sisters and taking turns to bathe the babies. They all just seemed so so happy, regardless of whether we were there or not. And they live in the most beautiful place in amongst the hills, in wonderful forests with such magical scenery. I felt, as I stood there, that perhaps I was the one that might be missing out.

... us round trip because he looked like he was about 50 years old...too old to peddle our weight! For Buddhists, Sarnath is one of four sites of pilgrimage. Three sites are in the Ganges Valley of India and one is in Lumbini, Nepal. You could also call Sarnath a temple city because there are many modern temples built here. Korea, Japan, Thailand, Burma, China, and Tibet all have temples that ...

... for a car and driver to take us out to the show. A few other people made the trip out with us, and so there were 6 of us "foreigners" all together. I don't know quite what I was expecting, but I was a bit surprised when, at around 7:30pm, we pulled off the road and into a dirt parking lot. Apparently cars weren't allowed to drive all the way up to the Mela area, so we had to leave the car and driver here and walk with the crowds to the festival grounds. We ...

... reasonable hour, so we thanked the man and his wife but told them that we would have to join them for dinner on another occasion. We thanked the yogi on our way out, and then caught separate cycle rickshaws to take us home. Although this yoga experience was definitely different than the yoga I know, and I'm not sure I'll be a regular attendee at these Sunday "yoga" sessions, I'm glad that I had the chance to take part in this new experience that could happen only in India!

... against the British. In 1857, during an uprising against the British, Indian freedom fighters forced all the city's British inhabitants to take refuge in the Residency, a huge mansion owned by a British colonial leader, for almost 150 days. Lucknow is famous for Mughlai food and Urdu literature and poetry. I've also been told that Lucknow is a city of high culture, dance and music, and refined manners, but I think that the cultural renaissance in Lucknow must ...

... been waking up earlier than usual here, and because we didn't need to be at the office until 10am, I had plenty of time in the morning to cook breakfast, do laundry, etc . Sharon and I left the house around 9:15 to leave us enough time to find a cycle rickshaw driver who knew how to take us to our office. On Tuesday, my landlady had tried to arrange for a cycle rickshaw to come meet us at the house to take us to work, but he didn't show up, so we were on our own. We ...

... us from spotting a spoof. However, having read-up on Bollywood (well, I read the wikipedia entry) I realise the crass unconvincing over-acting, sorry melodrama, was not tongue in cheek. The character list included two fat jealous fathers, two fat flappy mothers and two fat gimpy brothers (1 from each pair forming the respective families of two star-crossed lovers who were not fat, flappy or gimpy but Barbie & Ken beautiful). There was also a band of greasy ...