Wednesday, December 22, 2004
the further pavillon
back in the eighties we were the last family on our street to get a video player. this was only to be expected. after all, when it came to computers we had an '
educational' bbc b rather than the 'games friendly' zx spectrum that everyone else (ie all your school mates you could swap games with) had.
still, eventually we did acquire one and some blank tapes with it. to my 14 year old mind, these tapes had one purpose - the recording, and subsequent replaying infinitely, of crystal palace football highlights. unfortunately other members of my family, crucially fairly influential members, had other ideas.
inexplicably several of the, rather limited, store of blank tapes had to be used to record every episode of some ridiculous period drama - the far pavillons. why anyone would want to watch some a thing in the first place was beyond me, let alone have it sat there by the tv for evermore. still, what mother wants, mother invariably gets.
so it is with a fairly heavy dose of irony that we found ourselves in Samode, scene of the filming of the very same raj drama - the far pavillons. the buildings has since been converted into a luxury 5 star hotel. the times apparently voted the it the 5th best hotel in the world a few years back and even the rough guide admitted it was worth forgetting the budget and staying there for a night. forget the budget? well, after consulting my little book of numbers the purse strings were relaxed. we even got ourselves a suite for the night. it must be christmas.
the times wasn't wrong and, to borrow a phrase, the whole place was 'knockout'. in 24 hours we managed to pack it all in - jaccuzis, saunas, swimming, tennis, badminton, puppet shows, culture shows, a whole hour long interview with lee sharpe and even the entire 90 minutes replay of birmingham v west brom. in the spirit of christmas compromise i even agreed to forsake charlton v fulham so we could sit on the balcony and 'be romantic'.
previous to that we had spent a day in the shekawati region. dismissed by yours truly as a likely '3 hour drive just to look at some painted walls', it turned out to be well worth the drive(in our chauffered driven car - it is christmas after all..). without boring the tears off everyone, many buildings in each town - havelis - have elaborate painted murals all over the outside. proper off the beaten track, we had to search out old caretakers to unlock many of them.
followed around in the villages by up to 30 children all anxious to discuss sachin tendulkar ('master blaster') and knowing far more about the english cricket team than either of us, we staged our very own version of the pied piper of hamlyn. when told we didn't have any pens, one unphased 10 year old even suggested we went to the shop and bought some to give him. another insisted on holding hands with courtney and would still be leading her off into the desert sunset if we hadn't persauded him otherwise.
educational' bbc b rather than the 'games friendly' zx spectrum that everyone else (ie all your school mates you could swap games with) had.
still, eventually we did acquire one and some blank tapes with it. to my 14 year old mind, these tapes had one purpose - the recording, and subsequent replaying infinitely, of crystal palace football highlights. unfortunately other members of my family, crucially fairly influential members, had other ideas.
inexplicably several of the, rather limited, store of blank tapes had to be used to record every episode of some ridiculous period drama - the far pavillons. why anyone would want to watch some a thing in the first place was beyond me, let alone have it sat there by the tv for evermore. still, what mother wants, mother invariably gets.
so it is with a fairly heavy dose of irony that we found ourselves in Samode, scene of the filming of the very same raj drama - the far pavillons. the buildings has since been converted into a luxury 5 star hotel. the times apparently voted the it the 5th best hotel in the world a few years back and even the rough guide admitted it was worth forgetting the budget and staying there for a night. forget the budget? well, after consulting my little book of numbers the purse strings were relaxed. we even got ourselves a suite for the night. it must be christmas.
the times wasn't wrong and, to borrow a phrase, the whole place was 'knockout'. in 24 hours we managed to pack it all in - jaccuzis, saunas, swimming, tennis, badminton, puppet shows, culture shows, a whole hour long interview with lee sharpe and even the entire 90 minutes replay of birmingham v west brom. in the spirit of christmas compromise i even agreed to forsake charlton v fulham so we could sit on the balcony and 'be romantic'.
previous to that we had spent a day in the shekawati region. dismissed by yours truly as a likely '3 hour drive just to look at some painted walls', it turned out to be well worth the drive(in our chauffered driven car - it is christmas after all..). without boring the tears off everyone, many buildings in each town - havelis - have elaborate painted murals all over the outside. proper off the beaten track, we had to search out old caretakers to unlock many of them.
followed around in the villages by up to 30 children all anxious to discuss sachin tendulkar ('master blaster') and knowing far more about the english cricket team than either of us, we staged our very own version of the pied piper of hamlyn. when told we didn't have any pens, one unphased 10 year old even suggested we went to the shop and bought some to give him. another insisted on holding hands with courtney and would still be leading her off into the desert sunset if we hadn't persauded him otherwise.
// posted by courtney and pete @ 15:48 
