Advertisement
The New Delhi train station
+40 degrees, masses of people, smell of foods sold at the station, all the sounds. It's an experience itself. Finally it was time to say goodbye to Delhi! Emma and I said bye for the boys after a really nice evening at the Metropolis Restaurant in the Main Bazaar-area (they had the best walnut-brownie ever, and the atmosphere was really nice- kind of a cool break from the noisy street-life of Delhi!). The air was still almost burning hot at 22h as we took the taxi for the Old Delhi train station about 8 km from New Delhi. Taxi was a great option after numerous auto-rickshaw-trips which are so noisy and stressing.
The train was supposed to leave at 22h40. We had some trouble to figure out our place, the cars are marked with letters, such as AC three etc. Ours was AS2. The train was supposed to leave from platform 5, but eventually it arrived to the platform 3. Glad we were at the station early enough...We asked about our place from some train-guys and they just showed we should get to the one opposite to us. We got in, thought we found our place from the sleeper, but then some Indian men told us we were at the wrong place. We asked couple of people for directions,
and they told us to continue to the other end of the train. We walked quite much from car to car (the train was like 1 km long I think...). Finally the train started moving and still not in the right place. We asked one couple who spoke good English and the man said the train would stop in 2 minutes so we could get out and just walk till the end of the train where our places were supposed to be. Soon it turned out, the train would stop not in 2, but in 25 minutes. We had slept in these 3 nights every night something like 4 hours, so the tiredness started to feel quite much in the bodies and eyes. Anyway, we made a plan to jump out on the next stop and run till the end, as we had 2 minutes time (so they told us). And we really just wanted to get to sleep. So, the we jumped, started running and no sign of AS2. 'We're running to the wrong direction', we yelled to each other and turned back. Many of the train doors where already closed, and all of a sudden the train started
moving. F***!! Emma got in to the train as she had ran behind me, but I still had something like 15 meters to get there, and the train was just going faster all the time. I don't know how I made it, one Indian guy took my hand and pulled me back inside. After this, we had quite shaky feelings for a while, and I felt super happy not to be left behind in some dark station in the middle of nowhere!
So, we were in the beginning again. We asked one guy to help us. It seems that in India you really have to be like in the Who wants to be a millionaire-program: you ask the audience and then calculate the percentage of different answers and then choose to believe the answer which have the biggest percentage...People just tell you things when they even don't really know. The train was supposed to be connected all the way, but there were some doors locked between the cars. He opened us one, so we could now walk to the other direction. We went through around 6 cars before there was a locked door again. There was nice people, they told
us our place was really in the end of the train and we were not that far anymore. The next stop was in 30 minutes. One transvestite-Indian listening to her/his i-Pod offered Emma a seat, and one man told me to sit with his family. The wife gave me a smiley-cookie, and I asked stuff about their baby. That was a really nice moment on that catastrophe-trip.
The came the time to jump out again. Still remembering the first attempt, we asked each other if we really wanna do this again, but yeah, it was worth it. The thought about AC wagon with beds was too wonderful. So, the train stopped and we started running again with the flip-flops and now already quite heavy bags. Sweat running all over, all I could think that this was absolutely the craziest trip I had ever done! Finally we saw the right numbers, confirmed from couple of passengers if it was really the right one, and got in! Yes! Haven't felt that good for a while about going to bed, although the train sleepers are what they are. But still, it was something to sleep on. Now it was already a time to laugh (rather hysterically due to the enormous fatigue) to this weird experience in the Indian train! Good night!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.126s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 12; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0581s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
sanjay
non-member comment
Your train experience
Hey Varpu :) soon you will learn to enjoy these. When you will get back, you will never complain about crowd, patience, and above all people. I feel bad that I am not of any help here in India and the time you chose is certainly not the best one to travel for an european. By the way even we avoid these days as the summer vacation is coming to an end here and everybody is travelling. I hope you enjoy the remaining days and I feel good that atleast we get to talk while you were in India. I am off to London tomorrow afternoon and will be back on 23rd evening. But do message me when you have network connection :). Take care and enjoy the rest of your stay here. Sanjay