The tourists at the Harmandir Sahib Gurdwara in Patna City on Sunday. Picture by Sachin

Patna, Oct. 9: Twenty tourists from the UK and Germany on a trip to Patna Museum were disappointed with the shoddy display and maintenance of artefacts in the building.

Out for sightseeing in the day in the state capital, the group — 17 Britons and three Germans — later boarded the Ganga cruise that had reached Gai Ghat from Farakka in Bengal on October 6.

Diane Hotges, a retired lawyer from London, said: “I could see layers of dust on the display panels at the Patna Museum. The floors were also dirty. Maybe sweeping is not done properly at the museum. It is hard to believe that the museum is in such a condition.”

The German trio were also displeased with the arrangements at the museum. Lawyer Christian Wunderlich from Duesseldorf said: “There were so many artefacts in the museum but their display looked dull to me. These could be presented in a much better way to visitors with proper showcases and lighting. At present, these are kept just like any other ordinary item.”

Most of the foreigners reached Patna last night from Delhi and Varanasi. Tracy Hope from Leicestershire, UK, said: “I landed in Delhi on October 4 and reached Varanasi two days later. Last night, I came to Patna and met the others. We went sightseeing to a Sikh temple (Harmandir Sahib Gurdwara in Patna City), Golghar and Patna Museum. Except the traffic, I liked most things about the state.”

Later in the afternoon, the tourists boarded the cruise operated by Assam Bengal Navigation Company and Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation. Just like its journey to Patna with 19 Germans, a Dutch and a Vietnamese, the cruise would travel around 850km on the Ganga for the next six days and reach Farakka going through Bodhgaya, Munger, Simaria in Bihar and Rajmahal in Jharkhand.