India - Kolar, Woody's and a Family Room

For our entire trip in India, Woody's had loomed large.  We knew that we wanted to go to the SAPWII biosand filter project in Kolar, but with it came the only accommodations available - Woody's. We had been warned that Woody's on the star scale was a zero and to bring our own mosquito nets.   Kolar is about 70 km east of Bangalore and although Bangalore is considered the silicon valley of India, the Kolar region is one of the poorest in India.

We arrived in front of Woody's and it didn't look too bad.  Inside, though, it was very dirty and dingy, but we knew we had to do this and that it would be a great experience for the kids.  We put our own pillow cases on the pillows, tried to ignore the fact that the sheets didn't appear washed, ordered up towels, soap and toilet paper and rolled over and tried not to imagine that there were bugs in the beds.

Breakfast was another grotty experience and it was where I figured that we would be getting sick if we got sick anywhere.  We did take Dukoral for traveller's diarrhea which may have helped ,as to this point, we hadn't been really sick at all.

After visiting the Kolar project we asked Mr Rama Chandre where we should have lunch and he said the best place around was Woody's.  I was shocked, but that made it more apparent where we were.  His daughter though, suggested this new place that had just opened up.  It had Veg and Non-Veg food.  When we arrived at this new restaurant, it was attached to a huge new Tourist complex.

We did a tour and saw there was a swimming pool - 25 m in length and clean!!  There was also a brand new gym setup and an Ayurvaedic Massage and health centre.  We asked to see the rooms and were shown one with 4 King (or larger -  they looked like custom mattresses) beds, 2 bathrooms (one for boys and one for girls in our family) and a sitting area as well as 2 TV's.  It was pristine clean!!  A total bonus is the room cost 2000 Rps per night (37 Rps = $1 CDN)

End of story is that we spent the last 3 nights like kids at Brownie camp in Our Family Room and we managed to work out and swim for the first time in India.

Holly