Curry for Breakfast
Getting to India was probably one of the easiest journeys I have made so far. Getting to the border of Nepal was easy in a short bus journey and then from there onwards to Gorakpur was easy in a hired jeep. Though I will always be amazed that the Indians manage to get 16 people in a 12 person jeep. Still, it was cheap.
My first night in India was a curry and then sitting on a station platform waiting for our train to come through. Indian trains are very long and normally make massive journeys. Ours had traveled all the way from Assam in the North East across the top of the country ultimately stopping at Delhi. This takes a couple of days. As a result our train was about 2.5 hours behind schedule which is not too bad so we got on and surprisingly managed to find a berth each in the sleeper carriage. As this was 0230 in the morning I just fell onto my bed/bench and slept through until about 1000, where I was woken by the men walking along outside the carriage at the station or actually in the carriage selling tea (or chai as they like to call it). This is like sweet milky tea often spiced with some masala and is very nice, though I am already familiar with it as Neil's girlfriend from home used to make it. Then I had breakfast in the form of a nice egg curry and rice. Breakfast of champions.
The rest of the day was spent sitting and reading and walking to the open doors on the train to see it all go by. I was struck by how flat India is. I saw a contour map of the country and it is all very flat, except for the northern provinces and Kashmir. It must be very easy to cycle around.
We got talking to a group of Israeli travelers. They told me an amusing story about their experiences in Nepal. They went trekking and eventually met some Maoists who demanded the usual payment. The trekkers were a mixture of Israeli, Swedish, and Dutch. The Israelis were charged NRp 2000 each, whereas the Europeans were charged NRp 4000 each. I asked why the discrepancy and it turns out that after being asked to pay 4000 the Israelis normally haggled to such an extent that the Maoists gave up and just accepted the lower amount. The jungle telegraph then carried this message forward and now to save having to argue with the Israelis, they just charge them less! This is now their policy. Man, those guys can bust the balls of armed men. I'll just remember to never get into an argument with an Israeli :)
We arrived in Delhi in the afternoon and I was prepared for some massive mortal struggle to get from the station to our hotel. We exited the station and I was trying to remember my cub-scout combat training and the place was empty! We walked out onto the streets and not even one person came up to offer us a taxi. In fact, we had to go looking for a rickshaw and he even asked for a reasonable price to start with. For a moment I thought that maybe there was something wrong but so far here there has not really been too much hassle anywhere. I reckon it is a myth perpetuated by operators of private transport firms...
A few days in Delhi is what I needed. It has enabled me to use reasonable Internet access to get this thing up to date and to get rested properly. So far so good, but I'll shortly be scooting off to Jaipur in Rajasthan and then onto Jodhpur. I'll hopefully have something new to write about then. WE are going in a hired jeep which, we were assured by the nice man who took our money, is air-conditioned and will take 5 hours to get there. Should be fun!
My first night in India was a curry and then sitting on a station platform waiting for our train to come through. Indian trains are very long and normally make massive journeys. Ours had traveled all the way from Assam in the North East across the top of the country ultimately stopping at Delhi. This takes a couple of days. As a result our train was about 2.5 hours behind schedule which is not too bad so we got on and surprisingly managed to find a berth each in the sleeper carriage. As this was 0230 in the morning I just fell onto my bed/bench and slept through until about 1000, where I was woken by the men walking along outside the carriage at the station or actually in the carriage selling tea (or chai as they like to call it). This is like sweet milky tea often spiced with some masala and is very nice, though I am already familiar with it as Neil's girlfriend from home used to make it. Then I had breakfast in the form of a nice egg curry and rice. Breakfast of champions.
The rest of the day was spent sitting and reading and walking to the open doors on the train to see it all go by. I was struck by how flat India is. I saw a contour map of the country and it is all very flat, except for the northern provinces and Kashmir. It must be very easy to cycle around.
We got talking to a group of Israeli travelers. They told me an amusing story about their experiences in Nepal. They went trekking and eventually met some Maoists who demanded the usual payment. The trekkers were a mixture of Israeli, Swedish, and Dutch. The Israelis were charged NRp 2000 each, whereas the Europeans were charged NRp 4000 each. I asked why the discrepancy and it turns out that after being asked to pay 4000 the Israelis normally haggled to such an extent that the Maoists gave up and just accepted the lower amount. The jungle telegraph then carried this message forward and now to save having to argue with the Israelis, they just charge them less! This is now their policy. Man, those guys can bust the balls of armed men. I'll just remember to never get into an argument with an Israeli :)
We arrived in Delhi in the afternoon and I was prepared for some massive mortal struggle to get from the station to our hotel. We exited the station and I was trying to remember my cub-scout combat training and the place was empty! We walked out onto the streets and not even one person came up to offer us a taxi. In fact, we had to go looking for a rickshaw and he even asked for a reasonable price to start with. For a moment I thought that maybe there was something wrong but so far here there has not really been too much hassle anywhere. I reckon it is a myth perpetuated by operators of private transport firms...
A few days in Delhi is what I needed. It has enabled me to use reasonable Internet access to get this thing up to date and to get rested properly. So far so good, but I'll shortly be scooting off to Jaipur in Rajasthan and then onto Jodhpur. I'll hopefully have something new to write about then. WE are going in a hired jeep which, we were assured by the nice man who took our money, is air-conditioned and will take 5 hours to get there. Should be fun!