Day 50 (Sat 26 Aug) - Dehli / Chandigarh
Today we would take our first Indian train journey and start being proper travellers!
Before we left the hotel, and said goodbye to our happy guard, we fuelled up with breakfast and then saddled up with our back packs and trekked the 15 minutes to the train station.
We easily found our platform but there was a bit of confusion with the time of the train. Our tickets stated the train to Chandigarh left at 10.20am but all the information at the station stated it left at 11am. It was a very busy platform so Sarb left Jo with the bags whilst he went to investigate. He couldn't find any information so we just hoped for the best.
A train arrived at about 10.30am, we were ready with our backpacks on so we went in search of our coach which was AS4. We found AS1, AS2 and AS3 but could not find AS4. We asked a person who looked like they worked on the train where AS4 was, he just pointed to the end of the train. We struggled down the platform through the hundreds of other passengers who were fighting to get on the train.
We still couldn't see our coach. Everyone we asked just pointed towards the end of the train. We ended up at the last coach of the train so decided just to get on before it left without us. Eventually we found out we were in the right coach so we were able to relax in our very pleasant air conditioned coach. The four hour journey flew by as we passed through squalid Delhi suburbs and then onto the fertile plains of the punjab.
Got to Chandigarh where we first had to get through the rickshaw scrum. Basically you are wrestling to get your bags off a train quickly as you have no idea when it is likely to push off again, there are people milling about the platform and then you've got twenty rickshaw wallahs all asking you if you want a rickshaw. Quite stressful. Sarb has discovered the secret of dealing with the rickshaw men ie. shout very loudly and tell them to get lost for 5 minutes.
Got a rickshaw into town, but as it had recently rained heavily some of the roads had flooded so it took a little longer (and cost more) to get to our hotel.
Chandigarh seems quite an orderly town with roundabouts and a grid system of roads. Checked into our comfortable hotel and as we were hungry walked into the town centre.
Chandigarh town centre can best be summed up as looking like Milton Keynes ( [1], [2] ) will in 50 years time. There is an awful lot of concrete. Initially quite confusing to navigate across Chandigarh with the map we had as the road intersections are surprisingly far apart.
Anyway we tried to find some resteraunts listed in the Lonely Planet with no success either shut or were only serving booze. Found a fast food outlet, Millions 2, where Sarb had a very dodgy chicken burger and Jo a vegetable hot dog.
Found an internet cafe where we checked what the Pinjore Gardens were all about. These gardens are about 20km away and meant to be pretty fantastic. However the web photos that we saw clearly indicated that the gardens COULD look fantastic but were way short of it at present.
Got back to the hotel and had a bit of kip. For dinner we headed back to the town centre where we found that one of the closed restaurants, Mehfil, had opened. Had a fab meal .
Got a cycle rickshaw back to the hotel. Very peaceful watching the scenery go by without the associated noise of an internal combustion engine and only the occasional huff and puff of the thin rickshaw wallah as he laboured to get two rather full tourists up a slight hill.
Sarb watched a bit of footy before turning in.
Before we left the hotel, and said goodbye to our happy guard, we fuelled up with breakfast and then saddled up with our back packs and trekked the 15 minutes to the train station.
We easily found our platform but there was a bit of confusion with the time of the train. Our tickets stated the train to Chandigarh left at 10.20am but all the information at the station stated it left at 11am. It was a very busy platform so Sarb left Jo with the bags whilst he went to investigate. He couldn't find any information so we just hoped for the best.
A train arrived at about 10.30am, we were ready with our backpacks on so we went in search of our coach which was AS4. We found AS1, AS2 and AS3 but could not find AS4. We asked a person who looked like they worked on the train where AS4 was, he just pointed to the end of the train. We struggled down the platform through the hundreds of other passengers who were fighting to get on the train.
We still couldn't see our coach. Everyone we asked just pointed towards the end of the train. We ended up at the last coach of the train so decided just to get on before it left without us. Eventually we found out we were in the right coach so we were able to relax in our very pleasant air conditioned coach. The four hour journey flew by as we passed through squalid Delhi suburbs and then onto the fertile plains of the punjab.
Got to Chandigarh where we first had to get through the rickshaw scrum. Basically you are wrestling to get your bags off a train quickly as you have no idea when it is likely to push off again, there are people milling about the platform and then you've got twenty rickshaw wallahs all asking you if you want a rickshaw. Quite stressful. Sarb has discovered the secret of dealing with the rickshaw men ie. shout very loudly and tell them to get lost for 5 minutes.
Got a rickshaw into town, but as it had recently rained heavily some of the roads had flooded so it took a little longer (and cost more) to get to our hotel.
Chandigarh seems quite an orderly town with roundabouts and a grid system of roads. Checked into our comfortable hotel and as we were hungry walked into the town centre.
Chandigarh town centre can best be summed up as looking like Milton Keynes ( [1], [2] ) will in 50 years time. There is an awful lot of concrete. Initially quite confusing to navigate across Chandigarh with the map we had as the road intersections are surprisingly far apart.
Anyway we tried to find some resteraunts listed in the Lonely Planet with no success either shut or were only serving booze. Found a fast food outlet, Millions 2, where Sarb had a very dodgy chicken burger and Jo a vegetable hot dog.
Found an internet cafe where we checked what the Pinjore Gardens were all about. These gardens are about 20km away and meant to be pretty fantastic. However the web photos that we saw clearly indicated that the gardens COULD look fantastic but were way short of it at present.
Got back to the hotel and had a bit of kip. For dinner we headed back to the town centre where we found that one of the closed restaurants, Mehfil, had opened. Had a fab meal .
Got a cycle rickshaw back to the hotel. Very peaceful watching the scenery go by without the associated noise of an internal combustion engine and only the occasional huff and puff of the thin rickshaw wallah as he laboured to get two rather full tourists up a slight hill.
Sarb watched a bit of footy before turning in.
posted by Jo and Sarb at
8/26/2006 12:58:00 pm
1 Comments:
Just read it all! I feel like I have been racing round Africa, Dubai and India trying to catch up with you! Great stuff. Two things - 1) Love to see you both in the shots a bit more (but not too close to them there tigers!) and 2) Have you got a photo of you with Sagini you can mail me?
Sounds utterly fab. and the photo's are breathtaking too.
JP
By
Vivamex, At
8:35 pm
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