Adventures in Asia: Part II - India Cont'd

He was actually outside when we got there and he saw us and welcomed us in, then informed us that he was worried we were going to be late, and that was "why he was outside," and that because he was worried about that he was getting us tickets on the 8 o'clock train instead of 3 o'clock. It was really no skin off our backs since both trains arrived in Varanasi at roughly the same time, IF we really had those tickets at all. We were hungry for lunch so we left our bags at the travel office and went out into Connaught Place. I imagine at some point during its life Connaught Place was really nice, and probably sometime during its life it will be again, but at this point in time the place was a mess of construction (due to the Commonwealth Games, we later found out).

So, we walked around Connaught Circle until we found a place that looked pretty good, called "Castle 9," and the menu we saw at the entrance looked nice and was not too expensive. We went in and discovered that the restaurant was really nice and clean (a rarity for anything in India) but when we sat down and got our menus it was not the same menu we had seen at the door. Everything was at least 100 rupees more expensive than the menu we'd seen outside and some things quite a bit more. Keep in mind though, a jump from 300 rupees to 500 rupees is a difference between 6 and 10 dollars, not huge. Regardless, the principle of the thing pissed me off and I was just about ready to leave before more reasonable voices reminded me just how little money it actually was, and what did it matter. So I ordered a lamburger which turned out to be delicious and then we headed back outside.

We sort of wanted to explore Delhi a little bit and maybe get over to Old Delhi and check out the sights there, which we were told were interesting, but I was not feeling good about the train tickets and luggage situation. After everything that had happened the previous day with the train station and the car and stuff, I wanted to wait at the tourism office until we had our tickets, which the guy said we'd get around 4, and I was feeling unsure about leaving our bags there and going off. The guy we'd been dealing with had told us before when we left, planning to return around 5ish, that he probably would be gone home by that time but we could pick up our bags and get our tickets from someone else there. At this point, I felt like leaving all our bags in the office was the stupidest thing we could possibly do, even if the guy turned out to be reliable. Paula had basically her whole life in her suitcases (Hilary and I had only clothes - worthless), and to see Delhi and not have any stuff seemed worse than to not see Delhi and have all our stuff. So we went back to the office.

Fortunately, our bags were still there and we decided to just stay there hanging out with our bags until we got our tickets. I think the tour guide was a little disappointed because he honestly wanted us to see Delhi, and he could probably tell we didn't exactly trust him, but after we got ripped off by the police on the first night why would we trust anyone? He did his best to make us comfortable, offering us tea which we steadfastly refused (dangerous water) and showing us photo albums from travels around India. He had first said our tickets would arrive at 4:30 but that time came and went and he could tell we were looking nervous so he called his people and he said there was a little delay and they'd be there after 5. We were feeling a little bit nervous but we had no choice other than to wait it out there. Hilary and Paula went out to buy some stuff and left me in the office with the guy, we had an interesting conversation while they were gone that I won't go into here, and then finally around 6 or so, his dude came in with the tickets.

I checked them out and they looked pretty real but I'd never seen a ticket before so how would I know, and he decided it would be funny to tell Hilary and Paula that there was a problem and we didn't have any tickets. I warned him that it wasn't a great idea since they were kind of on the verge of snapping after everything we'd gone through and Hilary had already cried once in his office and a 2nd time in the car we hired through him. He insisted though, and when they came back I tried to play along but they knew how upset I was about other stuff and it was clear that I was not really upset, whereas if we really didn't have tickets I probably would have been freaking out and crapping in my pants. We had them going for a little bit though but I think he sensed it wasn't really the greatest idea ever and he pulled out the tickets, quenching their fears. He had offered earlier to drive us personally to the train station so since we had the tickets I was ready to get there, so I tried to politely remind him and I think I only half-failed, because he made a joke about "what else can [he] do for [us]?" as if I was giving him orders. It was no problem though and he took us out to his (tiny) car and we packed it full of our stuff, getting in and shutting the doors just as we were approached by a beggar.

However, this was no ordinary beggar. His left arm was the stuff of nightmares. Broken at some point a long time ago and never set properly, he had a small stump sticking out from his shoulder, and then the rest of his arm hung loosely below that, swinging uncontrolled as he moved. In his right hand he held an inhaler with which he banged on our car, and he was saying something about "this is the problem" or something, and we tried our best to ignore him as we waited to join traffic. Our tour guide/driver mentioned something about if you give them money they'll just use it to buy drugs, which was a jarring reminder of America and the real world, after living in Korea where there's almost no beggars and effectively zero drug use besides alcohol. Our dreams haunted forever, we set off to the New Delhi train station for the second time.

Luckily, there was no rain this time and when we got there we were able to see into the building and determine the actual train-station-ness of it, making our way straight to the International Tourism Bureau like Lonely Planet told us we should have done the first time. We ignored all offers for porters or assistance, like Lonely Planet said to do, even though it seemed that some people were actually directing us toward the ITB, though it's unclear why they would do that. Despite the sign that prohibited waiting in the ITB, we plopped ourselves down and waited, eating a cake Paula had bought (it was her birthday). I was a little bit tempted to ask someone about our tickets to try and confirm their authenticity, but Paula and Hilary were not as dubious. In my mind though, I'm picturing us getting on the train only to be confronted by some Indian people claiming the same seats, and then when we show our tickets they laugh and say "oh stupid tourists those aren't real tickets" and then the police arrest us for ticket fraud and we go to jail forever and just watch "Midnight Express" to see what happens next. 

Paula and Hilary, however, convinced me not to ask about the tickets so we sat around and watched other foreigners come in and out, none of whom were Americans, until it was time to check the board and see where our train was going to leave from. I braced myself to head back out into the fray and then luckily discovered that you could see the departure board from the upper level without being harassed by anyone so I checked the board for our train and got our track number and went back to the office to collect the girls and the luggage. 

There is a lot to say about the New Delhi train station and just about none of it is good. Probably the only good thing about it is that by going there you can get away from it. Otherwise it is a crowded, dirty place filled with scammers and beggars. It doesn't improve when you enter the track area either, no ticket is required to pass security. Thus, the tracks and the walkways are filled with people. We arrived at our track to find a train waiting there, seemingly the right timing for our scheduled departure, but we discovered it was not the train we wanted, and we soon realized that there's a snowflakes chance in hell that a train in India would've been that timely. So, we had to find a place to wait, and we walked through the crowd, aware that some beggars were eyeing us and possibly following us, and found a nice area amongst some metal bars and stuff where we could be protected from behind and be free to watch our fronts. Then we waited, listening to shrill overhead announcements that almost never stopped, and never (luckily, it turns out) featured our train, except for one right as we were getting there but I couldn't make out what it said.

First, we were followed by one of the disfigured beggars we had passed who crawled/dragged himself along the ground and then parked right in front of us waiting. We avoided eye contact, instead staring back at the other Indian people walking by. Eventually he left, and I don't remember the exact order of the rest of them but there were kids selling playing cards, guys selling chains for your luggage, another disfigured beggar (a kid this time), another beggar kid who tried to pull on my shorts, and more kids selling stuff. It was a pretty unpleasant waiting experience and as it grew later and later and our train was obviously late we got a little anxious. Fortunately, all the announcements overhead about trains being delayed 8 hours were not about our train. Another fun thing in India is that if you have to go to the bathroom, you just do it. I mentioned in the previous day seeing people pooping and peeing on the side of the street while driving to Agra, well here, they jumped down on the tracks to do it. Some people would also squat at the edge of the tracks and pee down, but the preferred method was definitely jump down to the tracks, squat and go, and jump back up. I was beginning to feel quite a bit of dread regarding the coming train ride, and our tour guide had also warned us to be careful on the train, because if not, we'd "go to bed with luggage, and when you wake up...  no luggage!" I was getting prepared for everyone there to flood the train in a mad rush when it arrived, and we'd find ourselves in a situation with squatters all over the train sleeping on the floors and stealing everyone's stuff.

Eventually, a bit after scheduled departure time, our train arrived. The lower class cars were towards the front so we began walking towards the back to find our 3rd A/C class car. This train had no first class, so the choices were 2A/C with 4 people in a sleeping compartment and 3A/C with 6, or low class, which we didn't see but from a train we passed it seemed to be just like a boxcar with people hanging out, and the doors wide open. Glad we chose the A/C one. As I'd feared, when we were entering our compartment and putting our bags in, some guy comes up and says that we're in his seats. I was a little nervous and incredibly mistrusting of everyone so I showed him my ticket with the seat numbers and car number and kept a tight grip on it, not letting him hold it. I was afraid if I handed it to him he'd just take it and we'd have no tickets and he'd get us kicked off the train. He looked at it and saw that we were in the correct place for our tickets, and he suggested maybe we'd been upgraded. I said I didn't know about that, but even if we were, he could have our upgrade. I was not about to take some "upgrade" only to find out there was no upgrade and we were out of a seat, kicked off the train. As you can see, I was a little paranoid at this point. Very wary of this "upgrade" and this guy, I steadfastly refused everything and insisted that we were going to sit there where our tickets said. The guy's friend then rechecked their tickets and started laughing at his friend because it turned out their seats were in car B2 not B1 and so we didn't actually have the same tickets. I was quite a bit relieved and the guy apologized and we shook hands and they left. After that, things got quite a bit calmer.

We arranged our luggage and ourselves so that we'd be sleeping on our bags so that no one could take them, and we began to relax a little bit. Sharing the "compartment" with us were 3 Indian men, a young guy, a middle-aged guy, and an old guy. While watching us try to figure out what to do with our bags, they tried to make some suggestions (put it on the floor here, under this bed there) but we weren't having it. They seemed nice, but we were still quite a bit paranoid and Paula had her computers in her luggage so we insisted that we'd just keep them on our beds "to keep them out of everyone's way." The inside of the train was actually pretty nice and the beds were long enough for even me to stretch out, although our compartment was only separated from the aisle by a flimsy curtain that didn't even go all the way to the floor. Along the wall opposite our compartment and all down the train parallel with the aisle were little bays with 2 beds, perpendicular to ours. In the beds across from ours were a really young soldier and a weird guy who never said anything but kinda just stared at us. For a bit there was some confusion amongst the Indians because the weird guy was just sitting in their seat, because he didn't really have a seat (only a bed), and also one of our companions (the young guy) had changed seats with someone else so they could sit together as a family.

Once things settled and the train got going though things started to improve quite a bit. After just watching us for a little bit, the young Indian guy finally talked, and here I will tell you that his name was Bawan (Pawan?) even though we didn't learn that yet, so I can stop referring to him as "the young guy." It turned out he was 19 years old (much younger than I had thought) and he was just starting university. From the quality of his English and his education it was clear he was from a pretty high-middle-class family, and he told us about all the English movies he had seen. He asked us if we liked Harry Potter and we told him yes we did, and asked "are you a fan?" His reply: "You could say that..." with a shrug and a sly smile. He was really cute and earnest and he told us how he had made all sorts of foreigner friends by going up and talking to them when he saw them on the street or at tourist sights. That sort of made us feel bad because it's really hard to know who is a Bawan and who is trying to scam you, so you kind of are gruff to everyone.

The train was good and we had a good time, Bawan acted as interpreter for all the people around us who wanted to talk to us but couldn't speak English, and in the morning after Bawan had departed our company, we were joined by another guy aspiring to work in IT in America. Everyone on the train seemed really nice which was a great counterpoint to our bad experience in Delhi, and they gave us lots of advice about travelling and warned us about Varanasi, saying it is about 50/50 good and bad people. Eventually we arrived in Varanasi and exited the station, quickly being harassed by people offering us taxis and cars, but we were sort of hoping we'd have a pick-up arranged by the hotel. They'd offered and we requested it via email the day before, but never had a chance to check for a reply so we didn't know. We blew off all advances and made our way towards the exit and finally one guy who had been following us since the beginning busted out a cell phone and asked if we were Paula. Of course, Paula was so we thought the guy had been sent from the hotel but we were still doubtful. Paula had said the name of the hotel before the guy could so she got on the phone and asked them to tell her her full name, at which point we were pretty satisfied and so we followed the guy to what turned out to be an autorickshaw, not even a car. 

We were worried but quickly discovered that yes, you can fit 2 suitcases and 2 backpacks and 3 passengers in an autorickshaw, and on top of that, 2 Indian guys jumped on the front riding to the side of the driver, bringing our total load to 6 people. Incredible. We weren't so sure about the hangers-on but there wasn't much we could do, so we stuck with it. The drive to Varanasi was incredible, even dirtier than Delhi and very sad. At one point we passed a truck parking area where the ground and puddles of water and pigs and people were all solid black from coal, it seemed, and the side of the road the entire way was not just littered with garbage but the garbage seemed to have become part of the very ground itself. It's hard to remember and describe everything we saw, and I wish I could've got more pictures but I was hanging practically halfway out of the rickshaw and I didn't want to be flashing my camera around.

Arriving in Varanasi was a little shocking as well, there are few roads that can really be called roads and it was packed with people walking, probably to the river. Varanasi is a holy city because of it's location on the Ganges river and many people make a sort of pilgrimage there to bathe in the river's holy water. More on that later, but the streets were packed. As I sensed us getting nearer our destination I was getting more and more concerned about what we were getting into. Our driver finally stopped at a small pathway where our autorickshaw could evidently go no futher, and demanded 350 rupees payment. We were a bit shocked by the high price and so we challenged him but he stood pretty firm and we settled on 300 but he was not happy about it. A couple of guys from the hotel met us at the bottom of the path to help port our bags, and we started up the side alleys. At one point, after stepping over piles of feces and through swarms of flies and around cows eating trash, I was despondent about our chances to survive a night there, but when we finally reached our hotel on the bank of the river all worries evaporated. It was nice. Really nice, and the hotel people were super friendly, and we had a spectacular spot right on the river.

I'll continue Varanasi in the next post (with photos), but I'd just like to mention now that we checked our email later and Paula saw a reply from the hotel saying they'd send an autorickshaw to pick us up and the cost would be 300 rupees, so we were glad we didn't acquiesce to the driver's demand for 350.