Today was checkout day for us as we're heading off to Darjeeling. We got up at around 8:30 and after some initial packing and showers we went down for breakfast buffet in the hotel.
Afterwards we returned to the room and finished packing and relaxed up until 11:30 when we went down to checkout and where a major surprise in the form of a gastronomical bill awaited us after Paddy's day - no I'm not telling how much, suffice to say it was eye watering and I really hope that you, Claire, enjoyed it!!! :-)
After partially recovering from our shock we walked across to Science City, just 100m down the road, and spent nearly 4 hours there on the exhibitions, Amazon movie in the dome and a short 10 min 3D movie in a small cinema about an African river system.
We must say that we were disappointed about Science City, it would have been impressive if not for the poor maintenance of the place - a lot of stuff and displays didn't work and the place could do with a coat of paint. It's as if visitor projections were well off targets and now the place is being maintained at less than minimum- for instance there were no birds and huge gaping holes in the fences of the aviaries- a real pity!
We returned to the hotel just before 16:00 and sat in the foyer for half an hour before going into the 24 hour restaurant for a last meal, which we ate slowly to kill time :-)
Then we returned to the foyer where we spent the remaining time before heading off to the train station at 20:30.
As it turned out there were allegedly small riots in Kolkata because a muslim man had been hurt in traffic and it turned ugly between muslims and hindus, which resulted in one of the main roads into town (the one we were supposed to take to get to Sealdah station) being closed. So no yellow cabs were around in the area of the hotel and we ended up having to book one from the hotel, which was rather pricey at Rs.1.200,- for a 7 km. drive. But never mind, we got to the station at 21:30, 1 1/2 hours before the train was due to leave, put our luggage down next to the RPF (Rail Protection Force?) just in case - Claire was sitting on the luggage while I was standing up for an hour before the train platform was announced. We made our way down to the platform and waited a few more minutes before the train arrived and then boarded.
It turned out that we shared the coupe with a young'ish and an old man and they weren't very talkative, which suited us just fine. After all it was 23:00 before the train left and we just wanted to sleep.
So Claire went off to sleep while I played a bit of music with my headset on and tried to fall asleep - but sleep was broken due to the bumpiness and both of the guys snoring in unison - so I ended up sleeping were little overnight.
Afterwards we returned to the room and finished packing and relaxed up until 11:30 when we went down to checkout and where a major surprise in the form of a gastronomical bill awaited us after Paddy's day - no I'm not telling how much, suffice to say it was eye watering and I really hope that you, Claire, enjoyed it!!! :-)
After partially recovering from our shock we walked across to Science City, just 100m down the road, and spent nearly 4 hours there on the exhibitions, Amazon movie in the dome and a short 10 min 3D movie in a small cinema about an African river system.
We must say that we were disappointed about Science City, it would have been impressive if not for the poor maintenance of the place - a lot of stuff and displays didn't work and the place could do with a coat of paint. It's as if visitor projections were well off targets and now the place is being maintained at less than minimum- for instance there were no birds and huge gaping holes in the fences of the aviaries- a real pity!
We returned to the hotel just before 16:00 and sat in the foyer for half an hour before going into the 24 hour restaurant for a last meal, which we ate slowly to kill time :-)
Then we returned to the foyer where we spent the remaining time before heading off to the train station at 20:30.
As it turned out there were allegedly small riots in Kolkata because a muslim man had been hurt in traffic and it turned ugly between muslims and hindus, which resulted in one of the main roads into town (the one we were supposed to take to get to Sealdah station) being closed. So no yellow cabs were around in the area of the hotel and we ended up having to book one from the hotel, which was rather pricey at Rs.1.200,- for a 7 km. drive. But never mind, we got to the station at 21:30, 1 1/2 hours before the train was due to leave, put our luggage down next to the RPF (Rail Protection Force?) just in case - Claire was sitting on the luggage while I was standing up for an hour before the train platform was announced. We made our way down to the platform and waited a few more minutes before the train arrived and then boarded.
It turned out that we shared the coupe with a young'ish and an old man and they weren't very talkative, which suited us just fine. After all it was 23:00 before the train left and we just wanted to sleep.
So Claire went off to sleep while I played a bit of music with my headset on and tried to fall asleep - but sleep was broken due to the bumpiness and both of the guys snoring in unison - so I ended up sleeping were little overnight.
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| Science City entrance in Kolkata |
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