Day 57 - 12th Apr 2009

We started the day with breakfast at our hotel then headed out to see some sights. The first one was a temple which was within walking distance of our hotel. As we emerged from our hotel lobby two rickshaw drivers spotted us from the end of the road and started running towards their rickshaw then raced to get to us first. Unfortunately for them after yesterdays experience's we had decided we weren't going to use the rickshaws today. One of them followed us all the way down the road while we walked to our first stop. It was quite intertesting but seemed to be in a bit of a state of disrepair. When we came out of the temple the rickshaw driver was there still waiting, but after we ignored him yet again and started walking he got bored and gave up on us.

Our next stop was the botanical gardens, but it didn't seem that they were particuarly open to the public except for some sort of walk early in the morning, so we carried on to the main road to find another moto to take us to our next destination.

We arrived at Bara Imambara, which I guess was a kind of palace. It was built by the nawabs (kings I think) of Avadh which was the kingdom which was here before the British took power in 1857. It has one of the largest unsupported vaulted halls in the world which was pretty impressive. We then hired a guide who showed us round the labyrinth which was built above the palace. It was pretty cool with lots of corridors and stairways and we felt that we might have got lost if we didn't have someone to show us the way.

We then headed down to the Hussainabad Clocktower which apparently carries the largest clock in India. Next was the Picture Gallery a rather odd musuem which occupied one small room of a larger building and had pictures of all of the Nawabs. We spent about 5 minutes before moving on. Last stop was the Hussainabad Imambara another small palace.

After this the weather was getting very hot and we decided to find a moto to get us back to near our hotel. When we had walked out of our hotel earlier we had seen a shopping centre with a MacDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut, so we decided to have a break from Indian food and get a pizza! Walking into the restaurant from the bustle of the streets we had just left was like walking into another world. It was fully air conditioned and looked like a very nice western pizza hut. It was completely empty apart from us and I think our waiter thought he was working in a five star hotel with the amount of attention he gave us. It was just what we needed to regain some energy and cool down, Indian streets can be quite tiring!

After lunch we had a look round the shopping centre. Again this felt like we could have been in a western city and felt quite out of place compared to the rest of the city. The strange thing was the amount of security there was, presumably to keep out undesirable people, but there were several guards on the entrance (some with shotguns) and metal detectors.

After lunch we headed back to our hotel and had a bit of a rest before dinner. We had a night train to catch that evening so we had decided to get some rest so we weren't so tired as the last one. We had also paid extra at our hotel so we could check out at 11pm.

So we checked out at 11 and caught the taxi to the station. Got there at about 11:05 so with plenty of time to find our train which was due to arrive at 11:25 and depart at 11:50. Unfortunately it turned out we had even more time as a screen said that our train was going to be 1 hour late! So we found a spot just near the entrance to put down our bags and sat down on them to wait.