Rani-ki-Vaav

Long day trip today. Hired a driver from our hotel and headed north out of Ahmedabad, aiming for the town of Patan. Here were aiming for Rani-ki-Vaav, or the Queen's Stepwell. These are common sights in India, essentially just decorated wells that have large and ornate steps leading straight down into them. But it was a 2.5 hour drive out from Ahmedabad, so off we went.

Not super impressed with the driver since his car only had one seatbelt in the back, and he kept on getting lost despite us telling him where to go. I think he sort of knew roughly where it was, but was just following the signs and when there were no signs he'd go straight. Then he'd ask someone where to find x, while we got more and more frustrated. So we finally arrived, but it took about an hour longer than we'd expected.

Good news was that the stepwell was actually really great. It's not a huge site, by any means, probably about half a football field, but the carvings and decorations were really intricate and quite impressive. We spent about 45 minutes going down the stairs and back up, taking photos etc. But we exhausted the site's potential fairly quickly, and so piled back in the car and set off for home.

Stopped for lunch on the driver's recommendation at a place that was a bit more expensive than we wanted, but oh well. Though our mood wasn't helped by the driver ordering himself a plate of noodles and adding it to our bill. We've had them add a cup of tea to a bill before which is fine, but a 150 rupee plate of noodles is a bit rich. Sure it's only $3, but when you've just paid him 3500 rupees for the day I don't think he's going hungry.

Anyway we eventually made it back to Ahmedabad with no real issues. Picked up our laundry and discovered the hotel had given me someone else's socks instead of my own - not happy! And of course trying to sort it out with the guys at the desk is hopeless, just like being on the phone to a call centre where they can speak okay English, but don't really understand what the problem is. Frustrating.Read more