Sangam here I come!

---

Rip off taxi man!
Walk away. Get another.
Train station real close.

Had an early morning start to catch the Intercity train from Mumbai CST to Pune. The taxi driver outside the hotel tried to charge me 50Rs for a 3 K ride. Thank goodness I asked Anand the reservations dude at the Y yesterday and he told me that it should be 25...no more than 30. The taxi man cum rip off artist only came down to 40 and let me walk when I only offered 30. Oh well. His loss! The next guy told me 50 and I offered 25 after saying it was too much and then he agreed right away. Must have been the first customer of the day or he was still ripping me off. lol

Great to see that there are many friendly and helpful people at the train station. Or perhaps it's because I looked clueless? haha There was an Indian lady with relatives from Calgary. The newspaperman. The Guy on the platform. Jimmy from NZ...managing director at the Royal Business College in Christchurch...although he looked pretty clueless in my opinion. Fellow passenger on SC1 (non air-con compartment)...whoops I was in the wrong compartment...I'm booked on the air-con compartment. And then there was the guy in seat 72...I just wanted to confirm one last time I was on the correct train and that Pune Junction was the last stop! So these friendly encounters have helped to ease my anxiousness of travelling alone on the Indian railways...

Upon arrival in Pune I took it pretty easy. Caught an auto rickshaw to Sangam and then was greeted and had a bit of an orientation of Sangam. It is currently the off season there and there's a lot of construction going on at the moment. Apparently the building was built with no foundation and therefore it was sinking! I wandered around the grounds a bit. Napped because I had woken up so early. Read. Nothing too exciting. But Rachel (from Calgary) who is working at Sangam was really nice and friendly. She's been working at Sangam for 2.5 years and before that she was at Our Chalet for a year. Nice to have some quiet time since I've been surrounded by so many people recently.

---