Delhi
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2005
1
10
137
Trip End
Sep 20, 2006
Delhi,
India
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
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We were preparing ourselves for another Calcutta but, apart from the mayhem at New Delhi train station, we have found New Delhi a much nicer place to be! It's still got the faded and slightly crumbling look that a lot of Indian buildings seem to have, but it's cleaner, more spacious and there are less people charging around - unless you go to Old Delhi and then you get the Calcutta Flashback!
The train journey from New Jalpaiguri to Delhi was 22 hours and we did it in AC3 which was a lot less luxurious that the AC2 Class we travelled from Calcutta to NJP in
01 - the train from NJP to New Delhi
. In AC2 (Air Conditioned 2-tier) we had 4 beds to a berth, curtains that we could close and our own reading lights... none of that in AC3 (Air Conditioned 3-tier)! There are 6 beds to a berth, no curtain, 2-tier beds along the aisle, no personal lights.... certainly a rougher nights sleep! Add to that an argumentative Indian lady who wanted to chuck us off our seats so that she could go to sleep on her bunk for a couple of hours at 2 in the afternoon, a nationalistic Indian man who couldn't help sticking his nose in and giving us his opinion of foreigners and how thay should behave in India, a group of 3 young Seikh men who crashed our berth playing awful music on a dictaphone at FIVE IN THE MORNING, and a guy whose wife sent him to sleep on the spare bunk in our berth (directly beneath Anne) probably because it would be the only decent night's sleep she would get in a while due to his earth-shaking SNORING....!!!! Oh yes, it WAS an experience! Best pre-trip buy: Ear-plugs.
Anyway, we leave tomorrow for Rajasthan. We have booked ourselves an 8-day tour in a car with a driver that we got through the place where we're staying (H.K.Choudhrey Guesthouse, Connaught Place - a dump, but a cheap dump!).
The itinerary is: Delhi - Jaipur - Udaipur - Jodhpur - Pushkar - Agra
From Agra, because we had such fun last time, we're taking the train direct to Goa - that's 2 nights as it's well over 24 hours! We'll let you know how THAT one pans out!
Roll on Rajasthan...
