Road to Amritsar

Susan & I go to visit Sybil in the hospital. She is having gall bladder problems and will require surgery. Henry is by her side all the time, even sleeps in the room. They are not sure if they will be able to reconnect with later parts of the tour. She is very pleased with the medical care. And that she has medical and trip insurance. We take a taxi back to the hotel and it is another wild ride. It takes an hour to get across town in grinding traffic,  twice the taxi actually drives on the sidewalk to get around traffic jams. Its like bumper cars without the contact, just continual near misses. We actually witness our first accident and despite all the apparent noise and aggression in driving nobody actually seems all that worried or upset that an accident has actually occurred.

We stay at the exquisite Raddison Blu Hotel with its 8 story atrium.  There is a very loud Indian wedding happening two floors below us and it is pulsing in our room. Ear plugs help a bit. This goes on to well after two in the morning. In our five star hotel we feel the contrast of our raining shower with the reality that our guide has only an hour of water a day in his modern Delhi apartment.

We get up very early, 4:30AM, to catch the bus to get to the train station in Delhi for our travels on to Amritsar. Ram Das has stories about the train station in Delhi and the cultural shock he had there as a westerner. It is noisy, the smells are repugnant, sheer chaos. Porters take our bags on their heads to the train. We could carry our own but this employs a local and assures us our seats as we tell him our seat number and he plants our bags there. Evidently it is quite common for a traveler to take any available seat. While the total number of seats will match the number of passengers figuring out where to sit becomes a challenge. Better to have the porter establish our territory. The cars are shabby, old and no way to tell when they were last cleaned. They look left over from the 1940s or 50s or a movie set from Gunga Din. Surprisingly there is a functioning electrical outlet by each seat so I get to write this as we ride. The door latch and spring on the door at the end of the car are long broken so the door continuously swings wildly. No one is concerned. Better not to think about the toilets, desperation is required for their use. Absolutely true to the paradox that is India, despite the chaos in the station and on the train, the train leaves on time. For those willing to accept encroachment on their comfort zone there is a real experience of the vibrant life pulsing through India.

Express Train To Amritsar