We arrived in Dehli around midday, but not in the train station that we’d expected. After a quick panic we established where we were and got an idea of the costs of a tuk tuk. Surprisingly, the tuk tuk driver did not rip us off, however he did try and take us to a different hotel which is the norm in India. We checked into Rak International hotel in the backpacker district of New Delhi. Looked very nice in reception but the rooms were filthy, but then again we were just glad to get a room on new years eve. Did a quick bag dump and headed off to another one of lonely planets recommendations, again a complete disappointment. In the evening we found a much better restaurant for dinner but I was not feeling any better as my chest was completed blocked up and Delhi isn’t the cleanest of places to breath. Like our Christmas, our new years eve party consisted of Mariana looking after me, but this time she was really annoyed since I feel asleep around 9pm.
For some unknown reason, when I booked all the train tickets, I decided 01st January would be a good day to visit Agra. Forget the potential hangovers and tiredness from the previous days travelling, there we were catching a 6.30am train from New Delhi station. The train itself was great, good seats, breakfast, the works, and in little over 2 hours we arrived in Agra. However, upon arriving we soon found out that the Taj Mahal was closed and could only be viewed from outside. This was disappointing for two reasons. Firstly, because we really wanted to go in and see it, secondly, because our return train was not until 8pm which meant we had lots of time to kill and only Agra Fort in which to do it. Stuff that, we went to the ticket office and booked an earlier 2nd class train ticket for 2pm.
We then took a tuk tuk for 4 hours, visited Agra Fort, went to a restaurant for a roof top view of the Taj, visited an awful park and was harassed by six separate child beggars, each with varying disabilities, before headin back to the train station an hour early.
The train journey back to Delhi was most interesting. Our 2nd class ticket did not guarantee us a seat, it was a first come if you are lucky status. However, we did manage to squeeze on a bench with three others and sat there patiently while the train chugged its way back to delhi. There was a constant flow of different passengers boarding the train, sitting above us on the racks eating dinner, constantly spitting out of the window and generally moving around as if they had ants in their pants. The train reached the outskirts of Delhi in about 2 hours, which was pretty good considering the state of the train, but then took a further 2 hours to crawl along at snails pace before terminating early. Again we looked in the book to establish where we were before agreeing a price to get us back top New Delhi in a taxi. The traffic was bad at 5pm and it took over an hour to get back, but we were so happy to be out of Agra and back to Delhi this early. We spent the rest of the evening chilling out, eating and generally reflecting on the day just passed. I deceided that the chest infection was not going to disappear so took some drugs from a local pharmacist and started popping pills.
The next day my chest was much better and decided to go out and find a post office, Mariana thinks I have some sort of fetish about posting things home, I have been doing our whole trip, and I just don’t know where we get all this stuff from. Anyway, headed off to post office in order to get shot of more stuff (2 pairs of trekking poles, and Marianas clothes that she bought in Singapore 10 weeks ago!). The post office in India is an experience as it is so confusing. There was hardly anyone in there but it still took me almost 2 hours to send 2 parcels. This is how the procedure goes….
1) Hello mister, letter or parcel?, which country?
2) Fill in forms in duplicate
3) Find the package man, who lives in a shoe box in a road eating coal, working 23 hours per day, 8 days a week, to get parcels wrapped and stitched.
4) Go back to post office and glue on one form to parcel.
5) Go back to package man and he stitches the second form to the parcel
6) Go get copy of driving license or passport from a man in a alley with a Xerox machine (I wonder if he drags it home each night?)
7) Go back to post office and pay teller, and then remind him about the change due.
8) Smile, leave building and go and play with the traffic.
I then receive a text from Mariana as I have accidentally locked her in the room, but she managed to escape with the help of the hotel staff. She had already eaten lunch so I settled for more McDonalds. Got back to hotel late afternoon and we went for early dinner at the same café (good food and nice people). Packed our stuff and had an early night in front of the tv.
Our taxi was booked for 7am, and showed up around 7.20 which was fine. The taxi chief tried a little scam to double up our taxi, but seeing as we had paid for a taxi I wasn’t about to let someone make money from out discomfort. I had had enough of India and it’s people and was starting to kick back. I told the guy in a polite way to got lost and wasn’t having none of it. He came back a few minutes later to say that there was a shortage of taxis, I could believe this guy, I told him that if he tried to put someone else in our taxi I want my money back. With that remark, he closed the door and we set off for the airport.
Seeing as this is typically the busiest day of the year (the Sunday before people re-start work in January) I wasn’t too surprised to see the airport overwhelmed with passengers. They were everywhere but we did manage to find a seat seeing as we arrived at the airport a Swedishly 4 hours before the flight, you can never be too early. We then started the ridiculous airport security check in, and 90 minutes later we were through to the departure lounge. We found a spot, hooked up to the wi-fi and googled until our flight was boarding. Luckily our flight was not delayed or cancelled as were many others, there were passengers sleeping on every square inch of available floor. We boarded our Thai Airways flight, found our seat and finally left India and all it’s diseases behind us.
Seeing as this is typically the busiest day of the year (the Sunday before people re-start work in January) I wasn’t too surprised to see the airport overwhelmed with passengers. They were everywhere but we did manage to find a seat seeing as we arrived at the airport a Swedishly 4 hours before the flight, you can never be too early. We then started the ridiculous airport security check in, and 90 minutes later we were through to the departure lounge. We found a spot, hooked up to the wi-fi and googled until our flight was boarding. Luckily our flight was not delayed or cancelled as were many others, there were passengers sleeping on every square inch of available floor. We boarded our Thai Airways flight, found our seat and finally left India and all it’s diseases behind us.
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