Not a boat

It floats on the river, it has a nautical theme, but I'm pretty sure this has no means of moving itself. Instead it is a hotel, bar, restaurant, conference centre and event venue. Its a wee bit grotty round the edges but the view from the river side rooms (cabins) is great. And I appeared to be the only non indian around all weekend.

On arriving I was looking for a quick checkin to catch the end of the IPL, the guy didn't seem to want to hurry, he was more interested in my mobile number which I was not giving. "It is a requirement to stay here sir", "It's in my bag", "just ring me on it then I'll get the number", "later".

So I rushed up to the restaurant and the ipl was on a small tv and it had people in front of it so I saw the last over and decided the restaurant wasn;t very nice and no one was paying any attention, no offer of a drink or a plate to utilise the buffet. So I headed back to reception - "I need a restaurant", "theres one upstairs", "I don't like that one (and they don;t seem to like me mumbled), "no where will be open" (it was now 11:30), "OK - I'll find somewhere myself"

Security come door man come train barrier man discusses with taxi driver and we head for the quaintly named Peerless Hotel (I later found this was a district not a boast). Up to the restaurant and all I can see is standard chinese/thai food - oh, but they do have alcohol. I then note another restaurant next door so I head there - its a Bengali - excellent .... except the menu is in bengaliu not hindi so I don;t understand a word. And no alcohol. So I went for the veg thali and excellent it was too. At the end I get presented a basket of chocolates - it's bengali new year!!

I get back to the Floatel and the inquisitive check in man wants to know what it is so I let him unwrap it all, and then he helps himself to two chocolates. Hmmmm. So I wander down the gangway and at the bottom realise that I don't like choccies much anyway so I run back up to the guy that procured the taxi and give him and his mates a couple each - the guy on the desk by this time cannot fathom me out.

And so to bed. The rooms are not well insulated. So when the person next door used the loo in the night I thought a boat had collided with us, I didn't call on him to find out what he thought my snoring was