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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Agra To Delhi: When Getting There Is Not Half The Fun

We left our beautiful hotel a little after 6:30 a.m. to make sure we could catch the 7:35 a.m. train. Two "coolies" (porters) carried a couple of our bags on their heads and took us to exactly the right spot to board our carriage, although we didn't know it at the time.

The train was two hours late and we shivered on the platform in the meantime. It was cold enough that we could see our breath.

The AC First Class sleeper (no air conditioning needed today, thank you) was quite comfortable. We shared a compartment with a friendly oil company employee who had boarded somewhere at 4:00 a.m. and told us the train was late due to fog. We used the berths and Brian caught close to three hours sleep. Tom, Ellyn, and Haley next door had their compartment all to themselves and relaxed as well.

It was chaos at the main Delhi station as we tried to find our way to the Metro train station. We eventually did about a half hour later, after climbing many sets of stairs in vain, all with our luggage.

Buying a token and going through security all took time, but we eventually arrived back at the Hilton and are ready for another nap.

Travel in India, as we were advised (warned) before our trip, is an experience in itself. Tomorrow we're due to fly to Goa with a connection in Mumbai and we've heard that flights were delayed or canceled today due to fog. Tomorrow could be another interesting travel day.



Tom eventually surrenders his pride and borrows a sweater.


A beggar woman sits down in the middle of the train platform to eat the sandwiches we gave her.




2 comments:

Dennis Warner said...

Sometimes a bit of chaos is part of the experience and part of the fun (Easy for me to say). When you take an inefficient system, unfamiliarity, and the language barrier some confusion is bound to happen. Anyway, it sounds as if you're having a good time.

By the way, I can't sympathize too much with the chilly weather you're having since it's -18C here right now and I just came back in from shovelling another few inches of snow off the driveway.

Kathy and Brian said...

Yes, we're looking on it exactly in that way. It's unique in our travel experiences to date.