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Published: February 18th 2010
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Visibility 5m
5am at the New Delhi station and the visibility was rubbish! It’s 5am and we’re en route to the New Delhi train station to catch our 6am train to Jaipur. Visibility is possibly only about 5m and in winter in India, Delhi in particular, visibility is key. The smog (fog + smoke combo) is a winter curse and lingers for the 3-4 months of cold weather. Yip, we’ve had a lot of people commenting on the fact that it’s been cold here in the winter but if you consider that we’re about 450km from the Himalayas - it should make sense.
So, it’s 5am and this has got to be one on the only times I have heard Delhi so quiet. No hooting vehicles, no men riding their bikes down the streets yelling for cardboard (!?!?!?!), no pigeons fornicating on our air-conditioning vent, no dogs barking, no trains hooting in order to alter would-be suicides victims of their arrival (pretty grim but apparently true) and no squirrels running along the windowsill trying to scurry into their nest. It’s almost peaceful - shock, horror, disbelief!!! Hee Hee!
The 10km trip took us close to 30 minutes due to the smog as well as the “road block” Yip, it seems that every
Train loo
No flush handle, just the tracks below. Wet floors - not convinced it was water?!? But at least there was a western option evening the Delhi Police almost cordon off the city. They place these free-standing gates in the middle of the street and when a car pulls up they ask the passengers to roll down the windows so that they can peer in and that’s it. Weird!
So having passed through this road block successfully - not sure what one would have to do to be unsuccessful - we pulled up to the train station. And in true Indian style, Rahul (our driver) just stops right there in the middle of the entrance to allow us to hop out. Who needs a parking lot when there is a perfectly good road?
Surprisingly, the station was quite easy to navigate. The trickiest part was keeping balance while climbing over the sleeping masses. As expected, however, there were the token “beggars” and wiffs of urine and faeces... wouldn’t be India without it. But would you believe that the train was on time! And it was easy enough to find the right carriage and the correct seats. According to travel agent (our friendly electrician) our tickets were in the ‘fancier’ seated class because our seats reclined! I can hear all the sounds of
Train
The train AC class with chairs like an aeroplane
shock and awe as you’re reading this... we had aeroplane -like seats and this is the Indian version of fancy - come on!!! Fortunately, it was clean enough and really not as manky as I was expecting, well until I needed the loo!
At least I was offered a choice - I could pee Indian style or Western style. Points for all those who guessed which one I chose! So taking a huge gulp of air, I opened the door and stepped inside. Surveying what I had to deal with I quickly determined that I needed to do a few things: (1) only breathe through my nose; (2) roll up my jeans so that they did not absorb the ‘liquid’ on the floor and (3) squat, baby squat!!! Now you need to know that this train is not a smooth ride, we ‘jiggled’ all the way to Jaipur and for any girl who has tried to squat and pee, you would appreciate that a jiggle train makes this task a challenge! So grabbing a rail in each hand, I managed to balance and successfully “do the deed”. At this point I would like to thank to dude who invented
Train station staff
These dudes were so fascinated with how Robby took a photo and kept saying" "Hi". Think they were even more amazed when Robby took their picture the ‘travel tissues’ - you deserve a prize of some sort! What’s weird is that there was no chain or handle to flush! And I soon realised that what I could see in the loo were in fact the train tracks - ah man!!!!!!!!!! Glad that was over I returned to our seat having decided that I would not be having anymore to drink until I got to the hotel and we were DEFINATELY not having anything to eat! They did try and serve us a meal that smelt something like feet - we refused.
After the 5 ½ hours on the jiggly train, feeling mildly sea sick from reading, we finally got to Jaipur. No sooner had we put foot outside the station, were we once again accosted by would-be taxi drivers. Following the recommendation of the tourist police (this is a REAL job, promise) we allowed Kahn to take us to our hotel. Our first impression of Hotel Megh Newlis (romantic Robby’s choice!) was a good one! There was a pool, which was awesome given that it was SO much hotter here than Delhi. But this all changed when we began the checking in process. Having booked
How's that tash!
Robby loves the locals... This dude was the "security guard" at the hotel we stayed at a ‘deluxe’ room the little lady at reception informed us (mid-way through filling in the visitors log) that they have bumped us to a ‘standard’ room because the dude in our room had not yet checked out as he was unwell. Anyone wanna take a guess how we reacted?!? After asking to see the room, which had 2 single beds, a view of the wall and a busted toilet door, the lady assured us it would be cheaper - this did not sit well! So we sat poolside at this hotel, guidebook in hand trying to find another hotel - gotta love India! We were lucky however that Kahn had thrust a thousand pamphlets at us when we got in the car and were able to quickly secure another hotel, which in the long run was SO much nicer!
Kahn filled the next few days with forts, temples, sitting by the pool, yummy food (no poisoning thankfully!) and photos! And of course we were taken to a number of stores en route... the carpet shop, the jewellery store, the fabric shop - two of which we were successfully convinced to purchase and naturally Kahn was chuffed cause he then
Hotel court yard
We were on the 2nd floor gets a cut of the purchases.
So with a new carpet and a stack of fabrics in hand, we headed back to the train station. The trip home was less eventful - think we knew what to expect now! Once back in Delhi, which was about 11:30pm, we tried to find a taxi or auto to take us home. So naturally when we found a taxi dude who was happy to go by the meter, we were stoked but as we climbed into the cab he reminded us that there was a “night tax” of an additional Rs200!!! WHATEVER! They always try and stick us with something, so shivering a little we conceded to a tuk-tuk auto which was by far our cheapest option!
All in all it was a great weekend and is highly recommended for those coming to visit us in the near future!
PS: be sure to flick through all the photos below - there are tons!
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Cath
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Hello dears .... loving your blogs! I've been sitting here giggling and having many "ahhh" moments reading your news. What a lekker experience .... loving the pics and the stories. All well on this end ... nothing really exciting to report