Began the day with the best breakfast for a long time. We had sufficient bloody cheek to take our own bread, butter + ham into the Himalaya Café + get them to provide just the coffee + eggs. It’s a tribute to their forbearance that they didn’t simply throw us out. The 3 of them went to the Tourist Office to try to get information about leaving. Val + I want to go to Varanasi, while Annabel is off, along with many of the other travellers, it would seem, to Kathmandu. They weren’t spectacularly helpful at the office, but provided something, I suppose.
Val + I spent the rest of the morning walking down to, then back from, a craft shop on the outskirts of town, beyond the Railway Stn. It was a complete waste of time, however, since the place had almost nothing on offer – there are immensely better places in town. When we returned to the hotel, we discovered that Annabel had spent her time immensely more profitably. She had gone up to the Youth Hostel, had sold 3 out of her 4 mock-Lacoste shirts, + one of our Fuji films, to a group of Indiian tourists. Inspired by her example, Val employed the same direct-sale methods over lunch, + at the 2nd attempt was successful, selling 2 more films for R45 each – the best we had been offered in shops was R35.
In the afternoon, we went to the train stn to book our tickets to Varanasi, but without success. At the stn they could book us places on the indirect line, ending at Mughal Serai, but not, for some unfathomable reason, the direct Varanasi express. That we could only do from Siliguri stn when we arrived there. Spent what remained of the day doing almost nothing. The most notable incident was Annabel, once again demonstrating her salesmanship prowess on what appeared as a horde of young Indians – a different horde from earlier on, apparently. She was interrupted in the middle by a power cut, but still succeeded in disposing of one of her Walkmans for a good price.
We all ate together at a small Indian café, providing good, cheap (and spicey) food, + completed the evening with the usual Saturday football on the radio.
I think we should have employed Annabel as a salesperson on our behalf, since she seemed to be so much better than us at it. But following her example, we did at least get rid of some of our excess film. (For the benefit of modern readers, film is what you used to have to buy (expensive) to put into cameras back then.)
