The $25 gin and tonic

Yes, we paid $25 for a gin and tonic. Times two, in fact. And that’s only the beginning to the mega expense that is part of staying at the Taj Malabar.

But first, our final night in Bangalore which, as promised, involved a bar/pub crawl followed by a great big dinner in true Indian style.

We started by going out at around 3 for a late lunch at a tapas place, but once again became completely confused by the outright wrong directions on the map the hotel gave us. By the time we finally found the place, we were hot, thirsty and grumpy, but after a lime and soda, some fairly average tapas and a large bottle of Kingfisher, we were in far better spirits and set out to sample as many of Bangalore’s bars as we could.

First we went to a place called ‘Scottish Pub’, which, surprisingly, sold nothing but jugs of Kingfisher and carafes of no-name ‘claret’.

We had two jugs of beer here before walking on to a place called Koshy’s, which is renowned with travellers – so renowned, in fact, that it was completely full, so we continued on down the bustling Church Street to a crazy bar called Nasa. This place is completely decked out like a spaceship, complete with blue lights, circular doorways and cocktails named after space clichés. The bizarreness of the experience was accentuated by a table of Indian businessmen entertaining Japanese investors, amidst the doof doof and riff raff.

Somewhat overwhelmed by the environment I (George) ‘accidentally’ ordered an entire pitcher of beer to myself:

while Bec, slightly more sensibly, got a cocktail called a Comet – a gin-based number with orange juice and rose syrup. That was tasty. Unsurprisingly I was a tad untidy after pantloads of beer, and with Bec’s support I stumbled down Church Street in search of the ideal eating spot. We settled on Oh! Amritsar, one of several restaurants in a mid-rise building on Church. We started with dodgy local cocktail (mine tasted like toilet, and Bec’s was saltier than an anchovy) and moved onto entrees – mine was a chicken leg stuffed with lamb, and Bec had prawns of some type. The main was gargantuan:

Paneer and spinach dumplings stuffed with mushrooms in a mega-rich tomato-based gravy. Yum. But it was too much, and we stumbled out to argue with an auto-rickshaw driver, who not only gave us the desired price but also let me – highly inadvisably – drive the last few hundred metres. We made it, somehow.

This morning was a hectic rush, but we made it to the airport and, after another uneventful flight, we were met by our tour operators in Kerala. We were driven one and a half hours in great comfort to our super-luxe hotel on Willingdon Island in Cochin, the Taj Malabar. Handing over to Bec now...

This place is absolutely amazing – after putting our bags through their very thorough security system, we were guided to our room, which looks out on the harbour below:

We had a brief rest before going down for lunch in one of the hotel’s four restaurants. The food was about on par with Australian prices, which was a bit of a shock after eating $1-$10 meals for the last couple of weeks, but we decided to not worry about money too much since this is one of our last stops, and it is our honeymoon after all.

We also explored around the grounds, which are literally right on the seafront:

There are some free things here, however. At 5pm we went on the hotel’s complimentary sunset boat cruise around the harbour, which was quite cool. They made us wear dicky lifejackets:

There were heaps of dolphins in the harbour, even closer than those we saw in Goa. We also saw the Chinese cantilevered fishing nets off Fort Cochin:

And returned to the hotel just in time for a great sunset (the photo unfortunately does not do it justice) and a gin and tonic.

And this was where we learned a little more about how expensive it is to stay in such a hotel. Our G&Ts finished, we were shocked when we received a bill for 2000 rupees (around $50). We questioned the bill only to be told that we had been charged a 90% value added tax because it was imported liquor. We were still not satisfied with this explanation, until after several enquiries we discovered that this is a law throughout Kerala, and that somehow we had managed to order double shots rather than singles. A very expensive mistake, but it still smarts a little.

We then had a somewhat cheaper local version of a G&T inside before going to the ‘Rice Boat’ for dinner. Here we had an over-priced bottle of Indian viognier and a couple of very tasty curries – a prawn malabari (with scampi) and fish Alleppey (ground coconut and green mango).

After this we returned to the haven of our hotel room only to discover that our room had been entered while we were gone and we were left some petit fours desserts plus an elephant made out of towels:

We still haven’t dissembled the elephant because he’s so cute.

Internet here is crazy expensive (of course) – around $4 for 30 minutes, so we’re typing up our blog on the computer and then cutting and pasting online as quickly as we can.

Our plan for tomorrow is to begin with a free yoga class on the front lawns, and then go over to Fort Cochin to look around and get at least one cheap meal while we’re here, and then have dinner on the terrace overlooking the sea (there’s an all you can eat seafood buffet every night) especially for Valentine’s Day…awwww.