DEHLI (Day 1)

Our flight landed in Delhi in the early morning. After customs and changing money (the bills came in thick stacks that were stapled together), we went to a train ticket counter and got a night train to Bikaner. We planned to first find the train station then wander about the city for the next 12 hours until our departure time.

We hopped on a bus headed toward New Delhi and had to wait until the driver felt he had enough passengers to warrant starting. The large old bus choked out plenty of smoke as we drove slowly past all the airport gates while his ‘door man’ called out destinations to the people on the sidewalk. Every now and then, we would interrupt our bumpy ride to make a seemingly random stop to let someone on or off. Even though all signs were written both in Hindi and English, they weren’t always easy to understand. For example, 'dead slow' seemed to mean drive slowly or a speed bump.

After a while, we were told to get off the bus because we were at our stop, the train station. There was, however, no station but rather a 'tourist office'. We were quickly herded inside by a swarm of people. When we asked where the station was, a guy tried to sell us a ticket. We said we already had one so he insisted on seeing it. He tried to convince us it was no good because there was no seat number on it and promptly tried to sell us a hotel room... and when that didn’t work, he tried to sell us a whole 2-week trip. We managed to get out of there but only after much frustration and difficulty getting our ticket back.

We hopped into one of the auto tuktuks parked outside and told the man to take us to the train station listed on the ticket. After only a few feet, he stopped while his friend (wedged in next to him) asked to see the ticket again. First he told us that this station was closed today and we would have to leave from another station. Then he made a big commotion about how would have to stand the whole 12 hour trip. When that didn’t work, he told us our ticket was no good and without really asking, brought us to an 'official government tourist office'.

Hoping to find someone who knew where this most elusive of train stations was, we went in. Again, the man behind the desk just looked at our ticket and pushed it aside saying "worthless'', then he too began the hard sell of trying to book a whole trip. Even after we finally gave in (after much stress and indecision), the man never seemed pleased but rather irritated as if why couldn’t we just immediately say "yes" to everything. And so, an hour (and several hundred dollars) later, we were now the proud owners of a 2-week tour including our own mini-van and personal driver. We had also added several cities to our trip.

Some of the places we would see

In retrospect, it was probably the best decision we could have made. Yes, we paid too much (about $44 per day, but that was far less than others did, we were to learn later) but it saved us huge amounts of travel time and stress. Plus we now had a personal tour guide who arranged all our lodgings (and could get us discounted rates) and would drop us off and pick us up from the front door of every place we visited.

Ten minutes later, we were in the van with Mukesh, headed for Bikaner, a city located in the desert region of western India. It was a good 10 hour drive and the road was extremely bumpy and dangerous... filled with huge potholes, large slow-moving trucks, reckless people on bikes, constant honking, stray dogs and cows, and the occasional camel-pulled cart. Mukesh helped fill the long hours by answering all our questions on Indian culture, Hindu religion, local customs and anything else we could come up with.

Downtown Delhi ... Mukesh's dashboard was his shrine, filled with pictures and stickers of various Hindu gods and burning incense (yes, while driving)

We only made it halfway to Bikaner before darkness set in and even Mukesh (whose wild driving style left a lot to be desired) considered it unsafe to continue. Needless to say, we did not argue and took the opportunity to rest our highly tossed and jostled bodies in a small hotel in a the village of Nawalgarh. The room was extremely filthy: silverfish flourished in the sink; everything was rusty and corroded; the bed was rock hard and covered with an dirty comforter; the toilet flushed using a bucket; the power went out for several minutes but fortunately we had a small flashlight; and the loud noise of people continued well into the night. Welcome to India!

The scenery became more rural the further we got from the big cities. ... Water on the road glistened as it filled extremely deep potholes.

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