Day 2
29th Dec, Thursday
We heard that there is nothing special in the town except something called plaza. Actually we had the misconception that it has a Disneyland, but there are 3 Santa Fe’s in USA. But we got up and by 10 we were out to see the city. But first there was a complimentary breakfast at the hotel and for the first and hopefully last time I had ice cold boiled eggs. It seemed a normal city as we went out but scenes chaged as we went near the place called plaza. The architecture changed drastically. Buildings were “Indian” ( From now on, Indian will mean, the American Indian and I will use “desi” for bharatiya) style which resembled to some extent with the mud houses of rajasthan. Finally we went to the place called “The plaza”. It was too good. It had wonderfully decorated churches and everywhere Indian people all around. They were selling their traditional togas, but as a student, I should never even think about them. There was a bhelpuri style “fajita” ka thela and people had queued up for it. We laughed at it but these Americans are crazy. Tap Tap (Read Asterix ). As suggested by the hotel owner we went to the most high demand restaurant of Santa Fe, the plaza café. It was historical, they say. For Americans, 50 years is history. Whatever, the ambience was pretty good and food tasted excellent. I had shared A plate of Burrito with mugdha as I was almost full with the ice-cold eggs.
Finally at 2:00, we started off for our next destination. It was as we left the city of santa fe we realized how beautiful it is. The full city was that same architecture, even the Marriott and the Hiltons. A 35 mile drive brought us back to I-40 and the biggest city of new mexico, the queerest name I have ever heard -“Albuquerque”. But as these highways are very important, we suitably bypassed the town and were heading for our next stop, William (near grand canyon). http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=Santa+fe,nm&daddr=Williams,+az&btnG=Search
I insist on you to go through the link which I add so that you can have a better understanding of the extent of travel that was done.
This was the first time, I sat in front seat acting as the navigator. And am proud to say that I am pretty good at it. Within an hour I discovered the significance of exit numbers and they are the miles the interstate highway covers along the state. For example, exit 217 is 217 miles away from one of the border sides. I don’t know whether to generalize or not but in the states we covered it increased from west to east. Whatever, coming back to the point, new mexico is absolutely dry and no industry state and no tourism also so it is also another legal gambling state like Nevada. We passed some casinos on the way. Land was so flat and road so straight that at one point of time we could see around 6 miles straight ahead of us. Me, D and Nik were in the same car at this point of time.
We needed a break around dusk and with proud I suggested near a hotel called El Rancho in border city of NM- Gallup. It’s advertisements had started long back and it was said that it is a world famous hotel. But to all our disappointment it turned out to be a pretty mediocre hotel. It turned out to be a big joke as I had hyped it beyond proportions during the drive. Everybody took it in a light sense but I will never forget this hotel again in my life. Coming back from trip, I had done my research and found out why it is world famous and here are the facts: http://www.elranchohotel.com/ . Home of movie stars. These Americans are really crazy.
We resumed our journey and crossed the borders to Arizona, the state of Grand Canyon (this is their tagline too). I was immediately reminded of my dear friend ananthu though as he was “then” coming to Tucson soon. Crossing a big city- Flagstaff, we finally reached Williams late in the night. Thankfully we had already booked in motel-6 so there was no tension. This part of trip I was with parag, harsha and mugdha, gallup onwards. There was some miscommunication between the two cars and we were separated and had to have dinner in different places. Thoroughly tired of Mexican I took chicken sandwich as take home. The town Williams is wonderful. Only a small place, actually not even a village, it hosts all the cheap motels for grand canyon, just 30 miles away. It had a special train service to grand canyon but too costly and the town was beautifully lit with Christmas lights.
The motel was pretty ordinary, but nikhil’s comment about it was the best : “Hamne room rent kiya tha, bathroom nahi”. The door opens and bathroom and wash basin greet you first and then the room. I noticed one thing that all hotels in US have to have Bible in the rooms. The room was exactly like New Marrion, BBSR.
We heard that there is nothing special in the town except something called plaza. Actually we had the misconception that it has a Disneyland, but there are 3 Santa Fe’s in USA. But we got up and by 10 we were out to see the city. But first there was a complimentary breakfast at the hotel and for the first and hopefully last time I had ice cold boiled eggs. It seemed a normal city as we went out but scenes chaged as we went near the place called plaza. The architecture changed drastically. Buildings were “Indian” ( From now on, Indian will mean, the American Indian and I will use “desi” for bharatiya) style which resembled to some extent with the mud houses of rajasthan. Finally we went to the place called “The plaza”. It was too good. It had wonderfully decorated churches and everywhere Indian people all around. They were selling their traditional togas, but as a student, I should never even think about them. There was a bhelpuri style “fajita” ka thela and people had queued up for it. We laughed at it but these Americans are crazy. Tap Tap (Read Asterix ). As suggested by the hotel owner we went to the most high demand restaurant of Santa Fe, the plaza café. It was historical, they say. For Americans, 50 years is history. Whatever, the ambience was pretty good and food tasted excellent. I had shared A plate of Burrito with mugdha as I was almost full with the ice-cold eggs.
Finally at 2:00, we started off for our next destination. It was as we left the city of santa fe we realized how beautiful it is. The full city was that same architecture, even the Marriott and the Hiltons. A 35 mile drive brought us back to I-40 and the biggest city of new mexico, the queerest name I have ever heard -“Albuquerque”. But as these highways are very important, we suitably bypassed the town and were heading for our next stop, William (near grand canyon). http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=Santa+fe,nm&daddr=Williams,+az&btnG=Search
I insist on you to go through the link which I add so that you can have a better understanding of the extent of travel that was done.
This was the first time, I sat in front seat acting as the navigator. And am proud to say that I am pretty good at it. Within an hour I discovered the significance of exit numbers and they are the miles the interstate highway covers along the state. For example, exit 217 is 217 miles away from one of the border sides. I don’t know whether to generalize or not but in the states we covered it increased from west to east. Whatever, coming back to the point, new mexico is absolutely dry and no industry state and no tourism also so it is also another legal gambling state like Nevada. We passed some casinos on the way. Land was so flat and road so straight that at one point of time we could see around 6 miles straight ahead of us. Me, D and Nik were in the same car at this point of time.
We needed a break around dusk and with proud I suggested near a hotel called El Rancho in border city of NM- Gallup. It’s advertisements had started long back and it was said that it is a world famous hotel. But to all our disappointment it turned out to be a pretty mediocre hotel. It turned out to be a big joke as I had hyped it beyond proportions during the drive. Everybody took it in a light sense but I will never forget this hotel again in my life. Coming back from trip, I had done my research and found out why it is world famous and here are the facts: http://www.elranchohotel.com/ . Home of movie stars. These Americans are really crazy.
We resumed our journey and crossed the borders to Arizona, the state of Grand Canyon (this is their tagline too). I was immediately reminded of my dear friend ananthu though as he was “then” coming to Tucson soon. Crossing a big city- Flagstaff, we finally reached Williams late in the night. Thankfully we had already booked in motel-6 so there was no tension. This part of trip I was with parag, harsha and mugdha, gallup onwards. There was some miscommunication between the two cars and we were separated and had to have dinner in different places. Thoroughly tired of Mexican I took chicken sandwich as take home. The town Williams is wonderful. Only a small place, actually not even a village, it hosts all the cheap motels for grand canyon, just 30 miles away. It had a special train service to grand canyon but too costly and the town was beautifully lit with Christmas lights.
The motel was pretty ordinary, but nikhil’s comment about it was the best : “Hamne room rent kiya tha, bathroom nahi”. The door opens and bathroom and wash basin greet you first and then the room. I noticed one thing that all hotels in US have to have Bible in the rooms. The room was exactly like New Marrion, BBSR.
posted by Sandipan Mitra | 6:19 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home