Claire and Morten Travel Blog in India 2012: 30/03/2012

This morning we slept in until 8:30 and I was literally out for the whole night as there was no noise or pesky cleaners around. I went down to the gym and ran for about 45 minutes before having a shower and returning to the room.
There we had breakfast from bread, cheese and Mango jam that we had bought in the Bazaar next-door yesterday.
Then we relaxed for a bit before heading off in an auto-rickshaw to go sightseeing. As usual, tourists pay a very unfair markup to see stuff - Rs.350,- per person to see the main sights here in Lucknow versus Indians who pay only Rs.100,-. Anyway, we started off at Bara Imambara and got lost to the point where Claire was running scared and worried about how we were going to get out after about 40 minutes of walking around the labyrinths upstairs. In the end I back-tracked us to a point and got us out of there ;-) The camera, which had displayed a full battery just this morning with three bars, proceeded to run out of battery, which was really annoying and meant that for the rest of the afternoon off sightseeing I had to rely on my phone camera - so note to self, make sure to bring spare battery/camera - gadgets do lie about battery!
Then we went across to see the Clock Tower, the Picture Gallery and the Bathing Ghats outside. Afterwards we headed across to the Chota Imambara where we spent about an hour with a couple of "guides" who of course were very happy to pick us up and show us around - and be friendly, as they obviously expected to be tipped...
We also went into a park just between the Clock Tower and Chota Imambara and spent a bit of time there before we had enough. We then got hold of an auto-rickshaw and were dropped off at the hotel at around 15:00.
I sat down and copied pictures off cameras and smart phones alike as it had been a while since I backed them up - and I signed up to the Taj Internet (€10 for 24 hours but I didn't really have a choice as 3g would be more expensive). Meanwhile Claire went out to the pool and I joined her about an hour later for about an hour.
Then I went off down to the shop next door and got us some noodles and bread for dinner and we had dinner at around 18:00.
For the rest of the time before we were due to head off at 23:15 we just relaxed, watched TV and Claire had 40 winks!
When time came we walked down to reception and checked out, quickly got our car and were taken to the station. At the station we found our platform and waited for 30 minutes before the train arrived, a couple of minutes ahead of schedule - while waiting we had plenty of people staring at us as if we were aliens from another planet - and openly doing so. Anyway we got into the AC2 train carriage where chaos awaited us with about 20 people in the aisle trying to get past each other with luggage and elderly people who could hardly walk by themselves. It took nearly 30 minutes before things started settling down and luggage was packed away, well after the train had departed. Claire and I tried to go to sleep - I had some music on - but it was hard as I in particular had rude people just pulling away the curtain to my berth and then stomping off when they realised someone was there - I even called out to one of them to explain himself but the fecker ran off - I was well sick and tired of the locals at this point as many of them have no manners and are quite ignorant as well as noisy without having to be. It is a wonder that any one Indian actually sleeps at all around here and that they're not all insomniacs - especially in the trains. A little appreciation of their surroundings and fellow beings would go a long way.
What has surprised us about Lucknow is that a lot of the people here are not very friendly. They will happily "take you out" on the road, throw your goods around in the supermarket and stare at us both rudely at times and even yell things at us from cars and scooters etc - and we have no idea what it means (and no, that's not paranoia as we both noticed/witnessed it). We have found that people are generally only nice to you if they are wanting something from you, mostly a tip, which is pretty annoying. Also, there are countless kids around ages 4-8 running around here and begging - much more so than any other place where we have been. We were actually really looking forward to leaving for these reasons - not a very pleasant place.
The only positive surprise is that auto-rickshaw drivers are less inclined to try and screw you - on two occasions we had the driver outright quote us Rs.100,- with no haggling for more than 8km, which would be unheard of elsewhere - on one occasion they (2 guys in the front) quoted Rs.200,- for a 7km ride but we just walked off - 5 seconds later they came up alongside us and asked for Rs.150,- to which I firmly said "100 Rupees and no more!" - they caved in and accepted. What you need to do is walk along the roads and have a driver stop and ask you - at that point you negotiate the rate and DO NOT enter the rickshaw until there is agreement. The reason is that these guys are hungry for a ride - oftentimes you will find that parked-up auto-rickshaw guys will quote you an arm and a leg as they are not really bothered unless of course you're "stupid" enough to accept. You can test auto-rickshaw drivers by just walking past them - if they don't bother "harassing" you then you know they're not that hungry and you just move on past the next one ;-)