A Grand Day Out

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The time had come to finally leave Amritsar and the Punjab - the home of India bread - and head for Rajastan - where even the Indian's think the food is a bit too spicy. Our train trip was not the one we had planned for and meant a short stop over in Ambala a city famous for, well ... its train station, but this was not to be any old train journey, oh no, this time we got fed! (Actually stuffed might be closer) As soon as the train departed Amritsar we were each thrust a tray glistening with unknown wonders including samosas, a little sweet sticky caramel tablet type thing in it's own presentation box and sweets (which were much nicer than the curry flavour ones we have managed to buy since - I mean who sells curry flavoured sweets - only in India). The best bit, however, had to be the individual thermos' with their own tea making kit - pity the trains vibrate so much it makes drinking chai somewhere between quite dangerous and rather suicidal. Barely 20 minutes later out came the trays of brioche and soup. It should be noted that at no point is any of ths explained so we had no idea what any of it was or what would come next - oh the excitement. This was, however, tempered for Duncan who got very upset when he realised everyone staying on the train was getting a pudding in a little bowl, just as we jumped off at Ambala.

The wait for 4 hours between the trains was not quite as exciting, other than the fact that our train didnt officially seem to exist - the station master was absolutely positive that the train "should probably be departing from platform 3 or 4 ... or 2 ... maybe". Hence we set up camp somewhere in the middle. Most Indians take the same approach it appears and we were beginning to question whether they all turn up a few hours late because they have a different 'Trains at a Glance' to us (for more on 'Trains at a glance' speak to Duncan - he claims to be fluent, just a shame India isn't)

As the train finally arrived at midnight it was straight to bed for us - a slight problem arose in that the people next to Duncan's berth were having a full on raging argument/hissy fit and had no intention of letting the very tired Scotsman sleep (although i'm sure they could have sold him something). While the three people in my section were all snoring in completely different ways with different volumes and all out of sync - I was hoping they might burst into song, but no luck.

By the time we finally woke the train was now well and truely in the desert and seeing camels roaming free was really exciting - oh how naive I was to think that I wouldn't be seeing many camels in India!

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