I'm hardly the first to notice that India's labyrinthyne train system, with seemingly dozens of differnt classes of travel that are impenetrable to the foreigner is an apt allegory for india's various classes, castes and ethnic groups, and that the train stations are a microcosm of Indian chaos, but I'll say it anyway. The train thing is nuts. First, Delhi station means wading through rickshaws trying to strongarm you in, then through the crush of humanity waiting around the lobby of the station, sleeping, eating, cooking, doing anythnig imaginable. As I make my way upstairs touts and various scam artists are calling to me conflicting advice, most untrue "Sir, no foreigners allowed here!" "You must pay fee to enter station!" "Sir, you must have ticket to enter station!" "Sir, foreign ticket office is closed, come to my travel shop!" "Sir, very dangerous inside station..." "Sir, your train is cancelled!" ad nauseum. They also all literally hang on my arm until I reach my destination.
So I made it to the foreign ticket office- a relief from the chaos below and told by the "helpdesk" to take a seat and watched a bunch of sellers sitting behind desks and helping no one. The room was of unfailingly polite japanese tourists who were reluctant to get up until called, so I just approached the desk of the nearest agent, who started helping me right away. The culture clash of the Indian concept of the line and the Japanese one certainly worked to my advantage... Still though, they didn't make it easy: civil servants the world over from the DMV in the states to the ticket sellers in India are all cut from the same passive-aggressive slightly aspergersish cloth. Completely rigid, I was given no information on trains, not sold a ticket on a train because it was less than 4 hours before departure, and then booked on the less-than-ideal SL class of sleeper train, and told I could "upgrade" once on the train. (also told by others that a little baksheesh goes a long way on a train...)
Frustrated by the train business, I decided to seek comfort in an "american day" in delhi. I hit up the coffee shop for an iced eskimo blast, ate a brownie, and then went to the New Delhi McDonalds. Now if I thought the coffee shop in delhi was a scene, boy, check out the McDonalds. Standing room only, with more employees thatn I've ever seen at mcdonalds helping seat people (I was seated with a family, thank god not with chatty young indian yuppies who mostly made up the clientele.) No beef at Indian MickeyD's means a McVeggie delux and fries for about a dollar. The McVeggie was sort of like if you imagine mcdonalds made a giant pakora and slathered it in massive amounts of mayo. The fries tasted relatively normal, but I had a nasty case of Delhi belly from the bad combo of food and actually was sick by the time I got back to my room, where I showered and watched some HBO.
Anyway, waded back through the madness of New Delhi station, to try to find which of the dozens of platforms my train was leaving from. The annoucements are in Hindi and English- should be helpful, right? But it literally has the announcement in English EXCEPT the track number, as in "Golden Temple Express to Amritsar now departing from track number paangch." At first I thought I was just hearing wrong, then I realized that they were not saying it in English.
At last I reached my train, third class non AC wasn't so bad after all, I was in a section with a bunch of Japanese at first. I was seated across from a Japanese girl who was busy gingerly blotting the sweat from her forehead until it was completely dry, then moving on to her arms, then down to wiping her ankles perfectly dry. All told, the effort took ten minutes, by which point her face was again soaked in sweat, rendering her labors completely futile as she started over. Eventually another Japanese found them, and I switched seats with him and sat with some insane Germans and one american in another booth.
The good Germans had come OVERLAND from Germany- trains across turkey then hitch-hiking and trains through Iran, uzbekistan, turkmenistan, and Russia. When they reached Mongolia they bought horses and trekked across to Ulan Batoor, where
they then flew to Delhi, having been denied a Chinese visa. (Word among current travellers is that NO ONE is getting into China these days without plane tickets, hotel reservations and a ticket to the olympics!) They were on their way to Northern Pakistan to try to do some first ascents of 6000m monutains. Their gear was vintage WWI army surplus packs made of canvas and leather, and they had quite the stories about securing the Pakistan visas. First they waited a week in DElhi for the interview, then got an appointment for 9am. They had to wait until two o'clock, when they were called in and asked two questions about their destination. The remaining questions were about European girls "You can really just talk to them? You can have a relationship with whomever you wish? The women have no morals?" etc etc. Anyway, the Germans were very cool guys, and after Pakistan they were planning to go back to Iran, then a boat to Dubai before crossing the Arabian peninsula and finishing in Lebanon. Hard-Core. But they were really not-macho about it, just very matter of fact, unlike some other nationalities who are constantly bragging about their ridiculous travel exploits. Maybe it was because they were all friends from scouts.
It was a decent train ride in spite of third class accomodations. In fact, drifting off to sleep I felt more content than I have in all of India, just drifting to sleep, my ipod playing my sleepytime mix on a train somewhere in northern india...
So I made it to the foreign ticket office- a relief from the chaos below and told by the "helpdesk" to take a seat and watched a bunch of sellers sitting behind desks and helping no one. The room was of unfailingly polite japanese tourists who were reluctant to get up until called, so I just approached the desk of the nearest agent, who started helping me right away. The culture clash of the Indian concept of the line and the Japanese one certainly worked to my advantage... Still though, they didn't make it easy: civil servants the world over from the DMV in the states to the ticket sellers in India are all cut from the same passive-aggressive slightly aspergersish cloth. Completely rigid, I was given no information on trains, not sold a ticket on a train because it was less than 4 hours before departure, and then booked on the less-than-ideal SL class of sleeper train, and told I could "upgrade" once on the train. (also told by others that a little baksheesh goes a long way on a train...)
Frustrated by the train business, I decided to seek comfort in an "american day" in delhi. I hit up the coffee shop for an iced eskimo blast, ate a brownie, and then went to the New Delhi McDonalds. Now if I thought the coffee shop in delhi was a scene, boy, check out the McDonalds. Standing room only, with more employees thatn I've ever seen at mcdonalds helping seat people (I was seated with a family, thank god not with chatty young indian yuppies who mostly made up the clientele.) No beef at Indian MickeyD's means a McVeggie delux and fries for about a dollar. The McVeggie was sort of like if you imagine mcdonalds made a giant pakora and slathered it in massive amounts of mayo. The fries tasted relatively normal, but I had a nasty case of Delhi belly from the bad combo of food and actually was sick by the time I got back to my room, where I showered and watched some HBO.Anyway, waded back through the madness of New Delhi station, to try to find which of the dozens of platforms my train was leaving from. The annoucements are in Hindi and English- should be helpful, right? But it literally has the announcement in English EXCEPT the track number, as in "Golden Temple Express to Amritsar now departing from track number paangch." At first I thought I was just hearing wrong, then I realized that they were not saying it in English.
At last I reached my train, third class non AC wasn't so bad after all, I was in a section with a bunch of Japanese at first. I was seated across from a Japanese girl who was busy gingerly blotting the sweat from her forehead until it was completely dry, then moving on to her arms, then down to wiping her ankles perfectly dry. All told, the effort took ten minutes, by which point her face was again soaked in sweat, rendering her labors completely futile as she started over. Eventually another Japanese found them, and I switched seats with him and sat with some insane Germans and one american in another booth.
The good Germans had come OVERLAND from Germany- trains across turkey then hitch-hiking and trains through Iran, uzbekistan, turkmenistan, and Russia. When they reached Mongolia they bought horses and trekked across to Ulan Batoor, where
they then flew to Delhi, having been denied a Chinese visa. (Word among current travellers is that NO ONE is getting into China these days without plane tickets, hotel reservations and a ticket to the olympics!) They were on their way to Northern Pakistan to try to do some first ascents of 6000m monutains. Their gear was vintage WWI army surplus packs made of canvas and leather, and they had quite the stories about securing the Pakistan visas. First they waited a week in DElhi for the interview, then got an appointment for 9am. They had to wait until two o'clock, when they were called in and asked two questions about their destination. The remaining questions were about European girls "You can really just talk to them? You can have a relationship with whomever you wish? The women have no morals?" etc etc. Anyway, the Germans were very cool guys, and after Pakistan they were planning to go back to Iran, then a boat to Dubai before crossing the Arabian peninsula and finishing in Lebanon. Hard-Core. But they were really not-macho about it, just very matter of fact, unlike some other nationalities who are constantly bragging about their ridiculous travel exploits. Maybe it was because they were all friends from scouts.It was a decent train ride in spite of third class accomodations. In fact, drifting off to sleep I felt more content than I have in all of India, just drifting to sleep, my ipod playing my sleepytime mix on a train somewhere in northern india...
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