Wednesday, March 28, 2007: Leaving New Delhi via Sarfdarjung Railway Station

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Only one day into the trip and I am already out of order. Oh well. Do you expect anything else of me?!?!?! Don't answer that...

I had to get up at an insane hour this morning (3 am) to trek to the bus station in Jaipur, which is just about an hour from where I was staying with Sharad's family in Kinshanghar. I ended up getting a ride from the family's driver, which was crazy seeing as he spoke no English at all. It is a very common misconception that English is spoken everywhere in India. The driver had strict instructions from Sharad to get me a bus ticket to Delhi and make sure I was on the right bus. It was nuts. The bus was fairly Greyhound-ish, except older, dirtier and fairly uncomfortable with no bathroom. But there was A/C, which in the heat was a blessing. It is a 4 1/2 hour bus ride from Jaipur to Delhi, and around 9:30 we stopped in a town called Behror for a short rest. Mehul, Sharad's friend in Delhi called me to check in, but I couldn't answer any of his questions. I handed my phone off to another passenger so they could chat it up and figure out where we were and when we were arriving in Delhi. Let me tell you, the language barrier is a really scary thing. I spent the entire bus ride trying to convince myself that this was all a grand adventure and that everything would be fine. Everything ended up being fine, but when you don't know where you are and have no one to talk with it is very easy to feel helpless.

Once I got into Delhi, I was less scared. Mehul lives in Delhi and I had his phone number, so at least there was someone close by again if I needed anything. I had to wait in the reception area of the bus stop in Delhi for quite a while for the travel agent to pick me up and take me to the Sarfdarjung train station to board the Palace on Wheels. Once we got to the station, he sat with me until it was time to board the train.

This is a bus station similar to the one where I boarded the bus for Delhi in Jaipur. I was on the "deluxe" bus, so there was one person per seat. There were buses where they just crammed them as full of people as they could--I know you have seen those pictures where people are hanging out the windows, etc. It's really like that...

As I waited at the train station this monkey traveled across the tracks on this structure. This was my first monkey sighting while in India, but I quickly learned that you see monkeys in India like you see squirrels in the US.
This is the famous Palace on Wheels. It is one of the places to see in the 1001 Places To See Before You Die book. I cleared a number of these while I was in India. I'll put that list together in another blog entry.
The emblem on the side of the train.
My room--I was in the Udaipur car, room #4. I was in the last train car with 4 other people--an angry Dutch couple and 2 men from South Africa.
The other side of my room.

The bathroom. I took a number of photos of bathrooms on this trip. The fact that there was toilet paper and a Western style toilet really made my day.
The shower left a lot to be desired, but at least there was hot water and I didn't need to fill a bucket to bath. The drain in the floor emptied right to the outside, so mosquitos came in over night. That was a little strange--you could see the tracks underneath as the train was moving.