Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: New Year in India (2016/17)
A poolside welcome to 2017
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2017 had arrived while we were both fast asleep. Having said that, my
slumbers had suffered some mild and transient disturbance caused by revellers
returning to their rooms in the 'wee small hours'. We managed to
sleep on until 9am and had breakfast about an hour later in the
extraordinarily busy Cubbon Pavilion. First job of the day
was then to make a full 'photo tour' of the property, which served
to underline what a high-calibre establishment this was. The tour
also gave us our first sight of the 12th-floor swimming pool, which
was relatively small - though not necessarily for a city centre
hotel - and unexpectedly quiet.
We returned to the room to get ourselves organised, and then took up residence by the pool for the rest of the day. People came and went, but very few hung around for any length of time. I began to realise that the lovely, fresh breeze that we were enjoying so much was not at all to the taste of Indian visitors, many of whom were acting as though it were freezing! In the afternoon especially, probably aided by people checking out and heading for home, we pretty much had the place to ourselves.
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In addition to sending New Year greetings to friends and family at home, I spent much of the time once again getting up-to-date with my trip notes, before I started to forget the details. Having survived on water since breakfast, we finally succumbed well into the afternoon and had a beer each, while splitting a panini.
Following a switch to indoor lounging just ahead of sunset, tonight's venue for Happy Hour was the Highland Nectar bar. What a change from the previous night this proved to be! This place really was freezing, as well as dark, and reverberated to techno-beat. (It was clear by now that many people in the hospitality business in India seemed to regard a constant, thumping boom-boom-boom as being de rigeur.) The atmosphere bore absolutely no resemblance to the images conjured up by the bar's name.
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| ABOVE: Enjoying dinner at the hotel's agreeable K&K restaurant | ||
Dinner at K&K (derived from 'Kebabs & Kurry', apparently!) was much more successful. This was a beautiful venue, and we enjoyed lamb kebab and a fabulously tasty vegetable dish served with butter naan (which was delicious) and Uzbeki naan (which I didn't care for).