Indian Railways

Good afternoon friends,

I am writing this update from the most relaxing and beautiful city we have visited, Udaipur.

The journey to get here, however, was probably the most grueling yet!

I haven't updated you on Jaipur because we didn't really do anything there as we were both feeling a bit under the weather and poor Tom was horribly sick - probably as a product of my burning desire to buy food off the street or from the suspicious warm lassi's consumed at our hotel on the first evening.

So, to cut a long and disgusting story short, Tom spent Jaipur vomiting and in a sweat.

On our final day in Jaipur, disappointment struck when we realized we had only seen the inside of our dark hotel room and none of the delights of the pink city.

So, we decided to muster up enough strength to go and see Amer Fort.

Unfortunately, even the majestic fort couldn't will us out of illness.

Half way up the stairs to the amazing fort, which stands on a huge hill above Jaipur, we were both feeling a bit dizzy and Tom needed to find a toilet ASAP.

Stumbling down the hill in search of our slick and chatty rickshaw driver Mohammad, we were both ready to go home an prepare for our train journey to Udaipur.

As we made it back to the shady tree where Mohammad had told us to wait for him (this seems rather biblical when I write it now), he was nowhere to be found.

In typical Indian style, five other rickshaw drivers became involved in our search for him, shouting to each other in Hindi before confirming Mohammad had gone to pray (as it was friday) and would be back soon...

One hour, five relentless beggars and two cups of chai later there was no sign of Mohammad.

We even ran into Lala - a rickshaw driver who recognized me (by my teeth apparently) from last time I was in Jaipur.

I have no recollection of Lala and he turned out to be a bit creepy.

At this point, we weren't too concerned by Mohammads tardiness as it was only 3pm and the train wasn't until 10 - plenty of time!

As I casually perused our train ticket, panic struck:

"Tom, doesn't 16:00 mean 4pm?"

Oh no!

When Mohammad returned, he was faced with two babbling westerners and at lightening speed he got us back to the hotel where we threw all our clothes into our bags in what looked like a Looney Tunes fight scene and headed for train station.

As usual, no one could tell us which platform the train was leaving from, where the platform was, or even if the train was on time.

The general answer from the guards or passers-by when I showed them our ticket was "yes madame, 16:00, umm (counts on fingers) 4pm, you are late miss!"

Yes, I can read 24-hour time, but I can't read Hindi or work out which platform I am supposed to be on.

We exchanged a few smiles and nods and with more than four different possibilities of where the train could be leaving from we took a stab at platform two and thankfully we were in the right place with five minutes to spare.

After humming the tune to Indiana Jones and counting how many hours until we would be Udaipur, we were ready to roll.

As usual, Indian Railways had other plans for us.

At 5pm the train still had not arrived, a minor delay, no big deal.

We wandered around for a bit, bought some biscuits, waved to onlookers and told about ten people Ricky Ponting was ALSO our favorite player.

From 6 until 8 we sang Coldplay's entire back catalogue and did star jumps when the cold set in.

The highlight of my evening was finally getting to touch an animal in India.

In case you don't know, there are stray dogs and cats EVERYWHERE in India and anyone who knows me could imagine how difficult it is for me to fight of my urges to pat the street animals in the persuit of not getting rabies.

Anyway, there was a very healthy looking bomb detector dog at the station that apparently, could be patted - here was my chance!

Gregin, the bomb detecting, bindi wearing Labrador enjoyed a good roughing up from me and did various tricks before continuing on his way to detect bombs at the railway station.

I am not sure how effective Gregin actually is at detecting bombs, I think after last night he will be confusing his job of detecting with want for affection or food from foreigners just like me.

Time at Jaipur station continued to pass at snails pace and after the delights of Gregin were long passed and the train had missed its second deadline, 930pm, we were becoming delirious.

It was at this point, when the cricket chat was getting a bit old, we decided the only logical progression to pass the time would be to pretend we were famous actors.

"You haven't heard of Neighbors?"

"Yes, you can have my autograph"

"Indie films, you know? Low budget?"

"We are making a documentary in Udaipur, for the BBC"

"Yes, I know Sachin Kahn, we are going to Mumbai in a few weeks, i'll say hello for you"

A few hours later, we had a ring of passengers around us and apparently quite an extensive film career behind us.

At 10:30 it was time to quit show business, that scene can really age you (ha ha).

At 11, I finally made the commitment to sleep on the floor with the rats and other Indians who had bought blankets and pillows for the wait - they knew Indian Railways are never on time!

The train finally arrived at 2:30AM the next day, only 10 hours late!

Thankfully, Udaipur has been a lovely place to relax after the train ordeal and we have spent our days here wandering the streets and doing some shopping (yay!).

Udaipur has a beautiful lake with a giant Taj hotel right in the middle of it which is very picturesque.

There are lots of forts and other things to see which we will be going to tomorrow with a driver!

Yesterday I bought a nice leather bag and the man at the store even stamped my name into it for me - he nearly died when I joked he had spelt it wrong.

I must dash, I think Tom is getting incredibly bored watching me type this.

Love,

as always,

Al

Xx