Tandori Nights - Orchha 2nd May 2006

I met up with Will, Liz and Andy for breakfast, well, it was more brunch as it had gone mid-day, which was still pretty early for Will and Liz! I ended up playing cards with the owners kids again, but not for long as one of them (Lachme) started screaming the place down when his sister wouldn’t let him run off with the cards. Lachme is around two years of ages, but he’s a right handful.

I went off for a walk down by the river and then around the town and met up with the others back at the guesthouse. I ended up playing cricket with Rishi (owners son) and his friend and was knackered after playing for over half an hour. I then got one of the staff here to get me an ariel lead for the TV as the one on my TV was missing. Once I got the TV working I crashed out for the afternoon watching BBC World and caught up with the news (which I haven’t heard for a couple of weeks).

We decided to give the “happy-clappy” temple a miss in the evening and went for a posh meal instead. There is a five star hotel on the edge of town and we decided to go there for something to eat as Will and Liz are leaving tomorrow (how can they leave this place?). The hotel is built in the style of one of the ruined forts and is pretty stunning looking, unlike their buffet. We asked to see a menu and we were directed to the buffet, the buffet cost 450 rupees (£6 GBP), and looked as though it hadn’t been touched all evening, which seeing as there was only two other people in the restaurant was quite likely. We declined their kind offer of a discount to eat from the buffet and ordered from the menu. It was 20:00 and I hadn’t eaten all day and I was really hungry and ordered a whole tandori chicken, steamed rice, a bottle of mineral water and a beer. I’m not looking through rose tinted specs here, but my mother used to make better tandori chicken than I got. There was just no taste to it, my mothers used to rock. My bill came to 620 rupees (about £8 GBP) and I could have got a far superior meal anywhere else in the town for a tenth of that.