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Amy and Simon's Travels
Following a six hour car journey from Mandawa, we arrived to the hustle and bustle that is New Delhi. We picked up Simon's replacement credit card (thanks Sue!) and got our flights organised for our trip to Bangkok on Saturday, which is still looking dodgy but the foreign office say it's ok!
We said goodbye to our driver Kuldeep at New Delhi Railway Station where he dropped us off, and gave him a hefty tip to maintain his good opinion of British people (since nothing else seems to matter, you could be a complete s*** but if you tip well then all is forgiven!).
New Delhi station is something to behold. We went there initially to dump our bags in the cloak room - that turned out to be infested with rats that were in the process of eating everyone's bags. The attendants aggressively waved us away when we dared to ask incomprehensible questions about how much it cost, and whether a padlock was available for our bags (they appeared to have a pile sitting on the desk in front of them). The station stinks of urine and excrement, which I think is the best case for not continually using a train's toilets when it has stopped at the platform.
Having no decent place to put our bags, we dissapeared back into New Delhi with our own bodyweight strapped to our backs, in the 35 degree heat. The autorickshaw drivers were especially useless in helping us with our bags, instead choosing to gawp at us from their cockpits whilst we struggled to fit everything in.
We were dropped off at Palika Bazaar from the rickshaw, and were immediately asked if we wanted a taxi. Being hot, pissed off, and sweaty, all Simon could muster was 'Why the hell would I want a taxi when I have just this second got out of a rickshaw?'. The sheepish looking taxi driver merely said, after some thought, 'maybe later?'.
At the entrance to the Bazaar stood a security guard who, seeing us heavily laden with backpacks, insisted on us removing our packs, so he could give them a cursory glance, and no doubt make some highly important observations, before telling us we were free to enter the shopping centre. Oh well, perhaps it's his way of justifying his existence.
Hassled down every corridor, we eventually found a bookshop that sold a guidebook to southeast asia and also an internet cafe where we checked to see if Bangkok had imploded (it hadn't). Realising we were running dangerously late of time, we headed over to Pizza Hut for the best meal of our trip so far (only joking). Seriously though, it was pretty amazing to taste something other than curry, and to line the stomach with some good old fashioned greasey stodge. Given our complete disdain for Indian food at the moment, we are considering going to the Varanasi branch of Pizza Hut tonight, oh the shame....
Back at the station, we frantically looked for carriage 'HA1', walking the full length of the train with our heavy packs, and now squabbling amongst ourselves, only to find out that carriage 'HA1' didn't actually exist. When we did eventually find the right carriage, we still managed to sit in the wrong seats - our actual seats were surrounded by a group of leery Indian men who could not take their eyes off of Amy, who were obviously excited to be sleeping in the same part of the carriage that she was. Amy was less excited. And even less so when she saw the toilets, which consisted of toilet bowl cleverly placed over a hole in the train, the track hurtling by below in all its noisy ferocity. Amy began to weep.
Luckily the rest of the trip was quite straightforward. Amy's novelty eventually wore off on the neighbours and they decided to go to sleep, albeit in a coughy, farty way. We would have slept relatively well, if it wasn't for the sudden realisation that we didn't know when we were supposed to be arriving at Varanasi, and were therefore forced to enquire about each of the stops we made through the night.
We said goodbye to our driver Kuldeep at New Delhi Railway Station where he dropped us off, and gave him a hefty tip to maintain his good opinion of British people (since nothing else seems to matter, you could be a complete s*** but if you tip well then all is forgiven!).
New Delhi station is something to behold. We went there initially to dump our bags in the cloak room - that turned out to be infested with rats that were in the process of eating everyone's bags. The attendants aggressively waved us away when we dared to ask incomprehensible questions about how much it cost, and whether a padlock was available for our bags (they appeared to have a pile sitting on the desk in front of them). The station stinks of urine and excrement, which I think is the best case for not continually using a train's toilets when it has stopped at the platform.
Having no decent place to put our bags, we dissapeared back into New Delhi with our own bodyweight strapped to our backs, in the 35 degree heat. The autorickshaw drivers were especially useless in helping us with our bags, instead choosing to gawp at us from their cockpits whilst we struggled to fit everything in.
We were dropped off at Palika Bazaar from the rickshaw, and were immediately asked if we wanted a taxi. Being hot, pissed off, and sweaty, all Simon could muster was 'Why the hell would I want a taxi when I have just this second got out of a rickshaw?'. The sheepish looking taxi driver merely said, after some thought, 'maybe later?'.
At the entrance to the Bazaar stood a security guard who, seeing us heavily laden with backpacks, insisted on us removing our packs, so he could give them a cursory glance, and no doubt make some highly important observations, before telling us we were free to enter the shopping centre. Oh well, perhaps it's his way of justifying his existence.
Hassled down every corridor, we eventually found a bookshop that sold a guidebook to southeast asia and also an internet cafe where we checked to see if Bangkok had imploded (it hadn't). Realising we were running dangerously late of time, we headed over to Pizza Hut for the best meal of our trip so far (only joking). Seriously though, it was pretty amazing to taste something other than curry, and to line the stomach with some good old fashioned greasey stodge. Given our complete disdain for Indian food at the moment, we are considering going to the Varanasi branch of Pizza Hut tonight, oh the shame....
Back at the station, we frantically looked for carriage 'HA1', walking the full length of the train with our heavy packs, and now squabbling amongst ourselves, only to find out that carriage 'HA1' didn't actually exist. When we did eventually find the right carriage, we still managed to sit in the wrong seats - our actual seats were surrounded by a group of leery Indian men who could not take their eyes off of Amy, who were obviously excited to be sleeping in the same part of the carriage that she was. Amy was less excited. And even less so when she saw the toilets, which consisted of toilet bowl cleverly placed over a hole in the train, the track hurtling by below in all its noisy ferocity. Amy began to weep.
Luckily the rest of the trip was quite straightforward. Amy's novelty eventually wore off on the neighbours and they decided to go to sleep, albeit in a coughy, farty way. We would have slept relatively well, if it wasn't for the sudden realisation that we didn't know when we were supposed to be arriving at Varanasi, and were therefore forced to enquire about each of the stops we made through the night.
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