17.2.19

Breakfast was served.

After gorging on salted butter again we went up on the roof top to get just one more photo.

We said our goodbyes and were advised by Joeys that a tuk tuk to the train will be 100 rupees.

Of course the driver we found wanted 100 each, so we said no and of course it became 100 for both. He asked where we were going and what time our train is and sure enough a guy was waiting to offer us a taxi as soon as we arrived at the station.

We had wanted to go by train both ways originally but it was difficult to book an exact train to Agra in case our flight was delayed, everything you read online says trains have to be booked in advance but our experience in Kollam a few days ago was that we bought a ticket at the counter, not sure I would risk it on a busy tourist route though.

Our train is at 10.25am from Agra Cannt station. Currently on the platform, early of course to make sure we are in the right carriage area.

It’s so simple at this station, an electronic board at the entrance to tell you what platform to be on and carriage numbers all along the platform so it was easy to find B5 waiting area.

This train is a 3 tier sleeper, it’s the Kerala express to New Delhi and originally departed from Trivandrum 2 days ago! Just crazy.

Just our luck we will be sharing a carriage with these people.

Well, luckily they were on a different train.

Amazingly ours was just a couple of minutes late and we found a family spread out in our seats with their child sleeping. We sat in the seats the other side of the aisle and the ticket man was ok with it and we were happy too.

The poverty and living conditions along the way are heartbreaking.

We arrived in New Delhi at 1.45pm and waited 10 minutes for an Ola taxi. I could see him on the app going round in circles. Google maps said it was only a 4 minute walk but John said no to struggling with cases.

What a nightmare. Our driver had to negotiate through the main bazaar road, battling with tuk tuks, rickshaws, street dogs, beggars, sunglasses stalls and scooters.

Then he was asking us for directions to The Hotel Dollar Inn, so we told him to stop and said we would walk. We then had to walk the now 3 minute walk amongst the mayhem and constant hassle from tuk tuk drivers – back the way we came!

Google then said turn left. There were no left turns, so we asked some guys outside a restaurant and they said down the small alley by the ATM. We looked, there was no alley. We asked at the nearby shoe shop, yes down there.

No way!!!! John went to see how far up it was and came back and said the place looked ok. The shoe shop man said to ask them to carry the luggage. I began walking along there to ask, got freaked out by the workmen staring at me, began to cry and went back to John.

He went off and came back with a lad who helped carry our bags.

I asked if I could see our room before committing ourselves and actually it was clean and nice.

The guy on reception then did some calculations and added service tax to the amount confirmed by Booking.com. I refused because he was wrong to add it but more because of the state of outside! He told me to ring booking. com so I said to John lets go, and he gave us a discount which made it what it should have been.

I’m seriously fed up of this now, any opportunity to get extra, it does my head in, on top of the journey, the hassle, the staring, the spitting, the old ladies begging the dropping litter, it’s relentless.

I even had a quick look at flights from Delhi to home, but it’s not really an option. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

We went off for a stroll, surprisingly without luggage the drivers left us alone and very little hassle from the bazaar. I found myself relaxed and enjoying the buzz of it all.

We stopped for a late lunch, a great toastie, John had eggs, beans, chips and ham. Followed by curd and honey, all very tasty.

We are very happy to see that the street dogs are friendly, not so scared, well fed, some had coats on and we even saw a dog on a lead!

We enjoyed browsing the shops and getting ideas for places we must see over the next 2 days. We could do a one day tour with a driver but we fancy buying an unlimited metro ticket and exploring that way. Endless traffic mayhem and beeping isn’t exciting us.

We went back to the room to unpack and discovered no hot water. A guy came, they did something upstairs, that didn’t work, so we’ve had to move rooms to 2 floors higher.

Unfortunately we hear the elevator remix of ‘I just called to say I love you’ on a regular basis now and have a very noisy neighbour who had a very lengthy conversation with a woman on a very loud speaker.

We ate at the Drunkyard Cafe a very short walk up the main street from us. It was very busy and the food was well worth waiting for.

A couple of guys we spoke to earlier warned us against going too far up near the railway station at night as there have been muggings up there by people who get drunk and carry knives, so we are lucky to have eateries nearby.

The centre of the road is strewn with rubbish, we like to think they’re expecting a street cleaner but more likely this was all hiding under all the traffic earlier.

Feeling more positive.

Night night.