Apr 16 2009

Sad To Leave Ranthambhore

After our fourth night we're all quite sad to be leaving Ranthambhore but an adventure awaits: we're catching two trains to be able to get to Alwar and there's only just over an hour between arriving at Jaipur and leaving there on our second train to Alwar. If our first train is late arriving by 45 minutes, we're gonna miss our second one and face a three hour taxi ride for £30, which I'd rather not have to do.

We arrive at Sawai Madhopur station thinking about quitting the trains and going back to the hotel for another couple of nights. This wouldn't be a problem with the hotel as they're not very busy at this time of year and we'd only lose 25 quid on the train fares. But we press on and wait to catch the train.

Our spirits are lifted by six or so local kids all waiting to catch the train, they're so smiley at seeing us - yes Dawes, even me! - and they lift our spirits. I take a photo and they're amazed to see themselves on the screen; turns out to be one of favourite photos.

The train arrives and departs on time, it's clean and we've got the six seats (actually two long comfortable benches) to ourselves for the two hour trip to Jaipur. We play cards, read and I listen to some music on my phone (Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack of course).

The train arrives at Jaipur on time. Phew!

A quick platform change happens with me wishing we'd packed less and we wait for the second train which again arrives and departs on time.

During the trip we decide which hotel to stay at, it's between the Alwar Bagh (as recommended by Indiamiker Puchoo) or Hotel Aravalli (as recommended by...absolutely no-one, but it's cheap!). A fellow traveller looks at my internet printouts about the hotels and tells that the Bagh looks nice but he doesn't know it and that the Hotel Aravalli is.."not bad". (He doesn't mean this in the English usage of "not bad" (as in quite good) but just that it isn't bad, but it definitely isn't good! We agree to have a look at the Hotel Aravalli and see what it's like that is until the train slows down and we see it from the window: "We'll stay at the Alwar Bagh I think" I say.

A crowd gathers as we get out of the station. Autorickshaw drivers hassle us for the business, it's 15km to the hotel. The first one asks for just 200 rupees and I can't be bothered to haggle, it's less than 3 pounds, for 10 miles, and he's got the return journey to do. The other drivers discuss in Hindi that we've been ripped off big time. Three quid: I don't care

What a good choice that turns out to be. It's beautiful (do I have any other adjectives for hotels?) and has a couple of acres, with two pools and five separate buildings for the rooms and restaurant etc. We splurge and take a suite which at Rs4000 is quite dear, but it really is lovely...look it up in Google.

As I write this the sun has just gone down (7:16) and it's dark, I'm outside using the owner's laptop (with a wireless broadband connection faster than my one at home - Hayward: leave it!) with the Aravalli hills silhouetted against the dusk sky. "Beautiful" is the correct adjective I think - yet again.  

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Apr 04 2009

Pushkar to Jodhpur

Awake at 5am, not my choice let's just blame Hotel Saket's restaurant, I waited an hour before I ventured out of the room onto Green Park Resort's open airy corridors and did 30 minutes of peafowl spotting, viewing 5 of them on the roof of a nearby hotel.

I spent one hour of removing Bharatpur's cyber cafe trojan horses - thanks a lot :-( - some blog updating and email stuff before the router died a horrible death I took the kids for breakfast. Jane and I weren't eating (refer back to Hotel Saket comment) but the kids as usual were unstoppable in consumption of banana, and this time nutella, pancakes.

So we leave for Jodhpur with a very poorly Jane in the back seat wondering how she'll cope with 5 hours in a hot car. She got through it though.

It seemed that Kamal was either lost or taking a shortcut unknown to anyone else - I suspect the latter -but we had to stop to wait for the train to pass at Pipar Road Junction, in the middle of nowhere. Got out of the car and I spoke to some of the local men while Emiled smiled with some local girls. I suspect that they'd rarely seen, or maybe even never seen, western children as young as ours as they seemed very inquisitive although somewhat shy. 

As the train pulls out from the nearby station it seemed that everyone aboard wanted their photo taken. I oblige and realise that frames per second is worth worrying about when buying a new SLR: I hadn't done. I really enjoyed this experience. Real India, real people.

 

Five very hot travellers arrive in Jodhpur, 240 kms and 4.5 hours travel; it's time for lunch as it's already 2:15pm.

A rest (and a sleep for the older ones) later and we go out for a walk in Ratanada, the area surrounding our hotel. We're on the look out for the restaurant named Bollygood which sounds fun. Rough Guide's map is hopelessly inaccurate so we return and ask the hotel where the restaurant is. The point out the location on the map and second the recommendations I'd got from Rough Guide and people from IndiaMike.

Tonight we dined in the hotels' courtyard. Feeling slightly poorly didn't dissuade me from try their mixed tandoori platter which was served with a sublime mint sauce. Internet connection seems good so some more blogging has to be done to appease those critical of the recent lack of updates - although I can't image they're that bothered.

 

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Apr 04 2009

I'll Push This Car Out Of Pushkar If I Have To

Pushkar was included in my itinerary for only one reason: to split up the journey from Jaipur to Jodhpur. I was interested to see the tiny lake surrounded by 500 temples but really I should have known it wouldn't be my kind of place: there's something about deeply religious cities or towns that does me in, probably because it's not my religion, if indeed I actually have one (sorry Dad, you know what I mean I'm sure!).

We made our way to the ghats via the Jaipur Ghat - each Maharajah had his own bathing ghat into the lake - after buying four lovely cushion covers (for Jane obviously; men don't do soft furnishings right?) for Rs350 (about £5) for the conservatory. We were immediately accosted by Bramin priest, authentic or not I'm not sure.

"Take these petals and throw them into the lake" he said, followed by words like "everyone pays us a fortune for these petals and if you don't the market sellers will shun you". We walked on thinking that the last market seller seemed more than happy to take our money at 5pm; apparently we were his first customer of the day, yeah right!

At this point I thought, "I'll push this car out of Pushkar if I have to" (hey, no groaning, it wasn't meant to be a joke).

After buying another pair of Kameez trousers for Amy from another happy-to-see-the-non-worshipping-foreigners we returned to our hotel, the Green Park resort for dinner. On the way we got stopped by an old man selling hand made shoes. "Oh no" I thought, here we go again, what is he going to try and sell me, hasn't he heard about The Downfall Of Ali Baba?  It turned out that his granddaughter was a few hundred yards away, would love to meet the girls and could he phone her to come quickly. I agreed and a mobile phone call and a puffed out 10 year old Indian girl arrived at the stall, not being able to talk, but happy to see two western children. A couple of photos later and a nice chat, we bid them farewell.

This chance meeting, followed by seeing a peacock up really close made Pushkar slightly more bearable.

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Apr 04 2009

Heading To Pushkar - by Emilia

Kamal, who wanted to us to leave at 9am, was pleased to see us on time, for once. Five minutes later we got in the jeep; I was on my four-hour journey to Pushkar. Three or so hours later, nearing Pushkar, we counted 18 camels; they were extremely tall. Some of the camel were pulling carts however others were just staying still.

 

(NOTE: this isn't one of my photos, I grabbed it from the interwebbythingy) 

Eventually we got to our hotel, the Green Park Resort, which is great because it has a lovely swimming pool; our first one so far. Finally, we went for a long-awaited swim in the pool; it was really cold; it was lovely. After that I had my lunch, my sister and I both had a Margherita pizza - as Pushkar is a vegetarian town and no eggs either - it was very fresh and very hot (out of the oven). After lunch we had another swim, after waiting 30 minutes of course.

Last of all, my family and I went for a walk into Pushkar town, which is a town centered around a very religious lake which is surrounded by 500 hindu temples and bathing ghats leading into the lake. We were dodging cows and motorbikes all the time; it was quite scary. Overall, I had a great day.

Emilia.

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Mar 30 2009

Emilia's Recap Of The Last 48 Hours - Delhi and Agra

Saturday 28th March

A driver picked us up from the Airport and took us to our hotel, the Apra Inn, in Karol Bagh, Delhi. We had a rest and ventured out on the streets to go to Pind Balluchi, a restaurant themed like a village, with a stormy sky like ceiling and it even had a tree in the middle of it. I ordered Tandoori Chicken starter and a Murgh (Chicken) Makhani, which I loved. The waiters, who were very attentive, served all the lovely food to us and a boy (about 3 years old) from the table near us kept coming and saying 'hello' and shaking our hands. It was funny.

Sunday 29th March

At 9am, our driver for the next 10 days (Kamal from Namaste India Tours) picked us up from the hotel; we then went on the trip to Agra which took exactly five hours and was very hot in the car, even though it had air-con. The roads are very busy and absolutely mad: cows wander the streets, there's bicycles and motorbikes everywhere, rickshaws and cars drive the wrong way up a busy road if they want to and the lorries are colossal - carrying heaps and heaps of sand.

At 3pm we went to the Agra Fort. In the Agra Fort, lots of people wanted to take photographs of Amy and me because we are white: Amy and I felt like we were princesses. Next we explored the fort, there were bats and geckos everywhere but that was okay; they didn't annoy us.

We ate dinner a Pizza Hut although a lot of the pizzas we're Indian pizza's, like Chicken Tikka Makhani: it was lovely.

Monday 30th March

Beep, beep, beep went the five thirty alarm, as we went to see the Taj Mahal at 6am. From far away the Taj looks like a speck in the distance however when you get close to it, it is actually really, really tall. I loved the Taj Mahal, especially the way the marble changed colour in the sunlight.

So far, I've had a terrific time in India and it's day three.

 

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Mar 29 2009

Agra - A Mughal Paradise

Today, after a single night in Delhi, recovering after the flight, we started our trip properly and headed off to Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal.

Agra is often regarded as a place you visit only to see the Taj Mahal and get the hell out. But it's steeped in history (and dirt) and played a major part in the Mughal empire. There's wonderful moments to see here; The Agra Fort; Itmad-Ud-Daulah (affectionately known as the Baby Taj); Akbar's Tomb at Sikandra and more more.

We're travelling in a Tata Sumo, a seven seater 4x4, provided by Namaste India Tours who are also sorting out the hotels for tonight and the next 8 saving us the hassle of having to find one when arriving in unfamiliar surroundings.

After four hours in our car dodging autorickshaws, very large trucks, camels and cows we arrived at our hotel (for the next 18 hours). Then straight out to visit the Agra Fort - which for me is possibly the best fort I've ever visited: if the fort wasn't good enough the view down the river Yamuna of the Taj Mahal is simply stunning.

Tomorrow will be an early start so we can catch the Taj Mahal during sunrise which is 06:11am (eek!) so I guess we'll need to get up at 5am to get there, get tickets and get through security in time to watch the world's most beautiful monument bask in the early rays of sunshine.

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Jan 14 2009

Booking Trains

In England you don't really need to book a train, you just turn up, hand over a lung, kidney or your left arm, and you're on the train.

In India you really need to book in advance, up to 91 days in advance, to make sure you can travel on the day you want to and in the class of train you want. This is a great advert for how public transport in England needs to transform: lower the prices, get people booking up early and make sure all your trains are full.

For more information about trains see this earlier blog entry: How Do You Want To Travel Around? 

The web site for booking India trains direct is www.irctc.co.in and it's fairly straightforward to use, albeit a little quirky. TOP TIP: when trying to pay by credit card select the AXIS bank as it accepts international credit cards.

IRCTC is no good for trying to find the train you wish to book. To do this use a combination of www.erail.in and http://indiarailinfo.com as they're much more user friendly. The site www.erail.in is my favourite for layout but indiarailinfo.com tells you the average delay times. TOP TIP: the shorter the journey a train has before your station of departure the more likely it'll be on time, especially if it starts at that station.

I'll focus now on www.erail.in as I used it the most.

Enter the start and stop stations and get a list of trains:



Select the train that suits your day of travel - in this example I chose the 2966. The information about the train, the stations, the cost per person in the different classes appears. Note that children under 12 (I think) only pay half the fare shown. So it costs one adult about £4 in sleeper class or £20 in luxurious first class sleeper, for 435 kilometres. If you're a family of four, like us, you'll pay about £50 to travel overnight on this route a first class cabin of your own, with a lock on it!


 

You can even see the whole route the train takes:



Now you need to decide which class of travel you're interested in by clicking the AV hyperlink in the relevant class column, e.g 1A, 2A, 3A, SL. The availability for that class and the class below it appear for the date you have selected for and a few days afterward. (For this picture I've picked a different train, one that's pretty well booked up.)

Looks fairly complicated but it's not really. Here's a rough explanation but to find out more have a good read of the brilliant article by Indiamike's steven_ber called Indian Railways RAC and Waitlists concepts explained.

  • AVAILABLE-0004 and AVAILABLE-0006 means that there are currently 4 seats (in class 2A) and 6 seats (in class 3A) available on the train for 24/2/2009. If you book now you'll get confirmed seat numbers and a (pretty much) definite place on the train.
  • NOTE: at this point I'm happy to say that I booked up all my tickets three months in advance and all the ones I wanted were available. So I've never had to go through what is explained below. I hope I've got the explaination right!
  • RAC2/RAC2 means that you will be buying a ticket which is 'reserved against cancellation'. This means that you will get on the train but may not get a berth, you may just get a seat, unless there's a cancellation.
  • WL8/WL6 and WL19/WL11 means that there is a waiting list on the train on 21/2/2009, beyond the RAC status tickets. The first set of numbers (WL8 and WL19) indicate the number of wait list tickets sold. It's not as important as the second set of numbers which indicate where you are in the queue.
  • Wait Lists - think of it like this: you join a queue for Wimbledon tickets for the match in a month's time, there's 100 tickets available and 110 people in front of you, you want 2 tickets. The confirmed tickets go to the first 100 people. You buy two wait list tickets WL111 and WL112 and wait. A few days later two people who bought WL104 and WL105 realise they can't go and pull out, even though they haven't actually got a ticket anyway. Your tickets become WL111/WL109 and WL112/WL110; you've moved up two places in the queue. With a week to go a block booking pulls out and suddenly there's after 15 tickets to be allocated to the next 15 in the wait list queue, that'll be you then; your tickets become WL111/CNF and WL112/CNF but you don't know where you're going to sit. On the match day the seating charts are prepared an hour or so before the game and you find out where you're sitting. Simple.

 

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Nov 06 2008

Step 3: How Do You Want To Travel Around?

In true Kev fashion, step 3 started at the same time as step 2, which of course was well before step 1. But hey, that's the first rule of project management isn't it: define your deadline and work backwards.

So just how do you travel around in India? I think you can break this down to three types of people:

  1. The Trophy Hunter. Typically really want to go somewhere to add it to their list and have photos of it. Travel in planes, want to see the sights but don't want to integrate with the locals whatsoever. Absolutely can't stay anywhere without a swimming pool or a Michelin chef. Trains are no problem as long as there's silver service and a pianist.
  2. The Integrators: Typically want to 'feel' the place they're going to. Eat where the locals eat, travel like the locals and perhaps try to speak like the locals.
  3. Me (and many others): Typically wanting to be an Integrator but a little scared about what might happen and certainly without the money of the Trophy Hunter.

For me, planes are out unless absolutely necessary and as it works out, for this trip, they're not.

I'm prepared to travel on a train, but first class, second class or third class, but I'm not ready for sleeper class yet. For more information see: http://www.seat61.com/India.htm.

Trains are probably the cheapest way to get around in India but it's no good if the train times don't suit or there's no station near where you're going.

How about taxis? Hiring a taxi from place to place is a good idea but you've always got to pay the driver for a round-trip as he's got to get back home. But the cost of labour is cheap in India so it is an ideal place for hiring a car+driver for whatever time.

The decision was made: we'll travel by car+driver to start with and once we're a bit more confident we'll take the train. Out of the air we plucked the time when we'd switch to trains as 12 days in, halfway through our trip.

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