We’ve got an early train from Gaya to Kolkata (Calcutta) tomorrow morning. Our guidebook and a handful of locals have indicated that it’s not safe to travel between Bodhgaya and Gaya in the dark. So we took a cab to Gaya during daylight hours and stayed the night there, much closer to the train station.

Wish we hadn’t! Gaya is a real in between town and not really a place worth hanging about. Our hotel was on par with the grimmest one in India. To escape the ‘orridness of our room, we sought out the area’s finest restaurant for some comfort food. Not such an easy task, but eventually we happened upon a reasonable looking hotel and took a table in their restaurant. Obviously, this town doesn’t see too many Westerners as, even though we sat in the corner, we quickly became the centre of attention for the staff and other diners. We ordered our food and pep-talked each other about how we’ve only got two more nights in this country to go.

A shape scurried across Squiffy’s peripheral vision, left. “I just saw a mouse!”, she alarmed. I called over our waiter, “there’s a mouse in the restaurant”. “It’s only a small one.”, he countered. It ran under our table and Squiffy squealed an impressive squeal. The only other diners laughed and the wait staff scratched their heads, wondering why the white girl got freaked. I stood, grabbed her forearm and lead her out of the restaurant, “come on, we’re leaving”.

After finding another food outlet–mouseless–we made our way to the nearby Internet cafe to fill some time before having to make our inevitable return to our grotty room. We didn’t stay too long at the cybercafe either, a huuuge black rat was scarpering across the beams a metre above our keyboard. Squiffy typed a one-handed, arms-length, one sentence e-mail and then we packed-up and left. Again I told the owner that we wouldn’t stay any longer because we were sharing the space with a large rat. He shrugged.

Upon returning to our hotel, we hid from the world in our silk sleeping bag liners. Someone please get us out of here.