Around India In 80 Trains

Katni's hardly a place to visit, but it is a large junction for train connections to Delhi, so it's worth having a decent hotel to stop over at in case you can't get an overnight sleeper. We arrived quite late at night and as most hotels were already booked up we came across this one tucked away at the end of a long street covered in shops. The rooms were small, drab and had extremely 1960s decor with a loud air-conditioner that turned itself off during the night, waking us up in pools of sweat.

As a stopover place it's clean enough albeit cramped, but the bathroom housed four of the most enormous, cat-sized cockroaches I have ever seen. So far the hotels we have stayed in have had insect-free bathrooms, but this was something else.

Thankfully we just watched a few episodes of Two and Half Men on telly and were out of there by the morning. And at Rs.500 for a double room, it didn't break the bank.