So, today was my first day of sightseeing! It didn't start out too well - I had booked the car for 11.30, was down in the main hall at 11.29, only to find that the driver had been and gone! I was kind of annoyed, but apparently that kind of thing is par for the course around here, so I wasn't too bothered. He did come back around half an hour later, which gave me time go back to my room and fetch sunglasses (which I turned out to not need) and bottled water (which I did).
After a few initial communication problems, we set off for the Aga Khan Palace! It turned out to be only about 15 minutes away from the hotel, which was a nice surprise. The driver waited for me in the parking lot while I went around. It's a lovely building in some beautiful grounds, smaller than I expected but very charming (and yes, I did take pictures, but I'm lazy and can't be bothered to upload...). To go around the little Gandhi exhibition was 20 rupees for Indian citizens and 100 rupees for everyone else, which I thought was fair enough. The museum is small, but nicely done and quite informative. It keeps things simple, talking about the time Gandhi and his people spent there and the Quit India movement in general, with some nice paintings and photographs to illustrate. Going round, though, you realise just how poor this country still is, even with all the development going on at the moment. This is a national monument to a national hero, and they apparently can't even afford to renew the plaques explaining the exhibits, which are stained, torn, and in some places literally falling off the walls.
It's funny really, because there are shanty towns all over the place, even on the way to work, but the Aga Khan palace is the first time any sign of poverty has really struck me. Somehow, the people who live in the little tin shacks on the sides of the road just don't strike me as poor. Or, well, they're obviously poor, but they don't seem miserable about it, if that makes sense. Which is not to say that they're not, but when you just drive through, they seem like people getting on with their daily lives and really quite enjoying themselves, at any rate much more so than the people in the poorer areas you find in Belgium. Maybe it's just that the culture is different, or that even the shanty-town women have beautiful, colourful saris and such, but so far I haven't really had the culture shock that I was warned about. Maybe it will come.
After the Aga Khan palace, I asked to see a shrine to Ganesh, since apparently there's a really famous one in Pune. On the way, we drove past a huge fortress-type building, with what looked like a statue of Genghis Khan or someone on horseback. We stopped there, and it turned out to be the Shaniwar Wada. I still don't know who the statue is really supposed to be, because all the plaques were in Hindi only, and neither wiki nor the leaflet I got mention it. Anyway, it was extremely impressive. Aside from the walls and gatehouse, it's all just ruins now, and the grounds are really not very big. Even so, the whole thing feels massive - the thickness of the walls and the solid iron pieces that remain are in a way quite overwhelming. I wandered around quite quickly, partly because I had told the driver half and hour, and partly because by that point it was 1pm and sweltering, but I think I might go back.
After that, we did the Ganesh shrine. Or rather, we did a Ganesh shrine. By this stage, the driver and I were managing to communicate pretty well, but I think I failed to differentiate the big, famous Ganesh shrine from every other Ganesh shrine in Pune. We ended up first going past a very small one set into a wall behind glass, sort of like a shop window. After that, he took us past a much grander one, a very elegant cream lattice structure, but the traffic was too heavy for me to get out and have a look. Instead we drove by veeeeery slowly.
And by that point, I was hot and tired, so when he said 'hotel?' I was quite happy to agree. On the way back, we went through some very interesting shopping areas, which I think I will try to find my way back to at some point.
When we got back to the hotel, I learned a valuable lesson: Be very careful what you ask for! See, I was hot and sticky by this time, and I thought a perfect way to cool off would be with fruit salad, right? (And yes, I know fruit is one of the dangerous things, but apparently you can usually trust the peeled fruit in the hotel.) I didn't want to pay for a whole buffet, though, so I asked the lovely hostess whether I could simply have a fruit salad. Her reaction was a little laugh, a nod, and a 'why not?' as she led me to my table. I thought that last part was a bit odd, but took it to mean 'fruit salad for lunch - hey, why not?'. As it turned out, what it actually meant was 'fruit salad, what a novel idea - it doesn't exist on our menu, but we shall get someone to make you some specially!' Because apparently, if you ask for something here without looking at the menu, and they don't have it, they won't simply tell you that. Instead, they will take your request as a personal challenge and do everything they can to make it for you. So, after a couple of conversations with the hostess detailing what kind of fruit I wanted, and how I wanted it cut, I was presented with a lovely platter and profuse apologies because it had taken a whole 15 minutes to arrive on my table. Also, my pineapple had little heart-shaped holes. Yeah. I felt guilty after that, especially since I wasn't really full afterwards, and ended up ordering a grilled cheese sandwich through room service half an hour later.
So that's been my day so far. I think now I may try the fabulous bath tub - it's a beautiful tub, first of all, and secondly, it stands next to the glass wall of the bathroom, so you can see out of the gigantic window when you're in it.
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