Day 3

JUNE, 17

So the next day… if u thought yesterday was hardwork , today wasn’t gonna get any easier… our tour operator made a statement... “ after we leav India it`ll b much less hectic and much more pleasurable” .. personally tht wasn’t a statement I was very happy abt ... wht can be more aweosm than India…. True, we might have to put in a lot of effort nd traveling isn’t gonna get any easy at 50deg C but it is worth every bit… anyway... we had a wake up call at arnd 4.00 AM… we all gt ready , packed and left for the train which was scheduled for departure at 5.15 AM…. It wasn’t such a empty feeling leavin a city which quite literally never sleeps , owin mainly to the golden temple. Quite frankly I think the only thing on my mind was hw cn a get som gud sleep which I must confess wasn’t very hard to find ; I was in “the shatabdhi” … so till abt jalandhar it was nice sleep nd thts whn the first coffee tray arrived… a flask of hot water , a kit with milk powder , sugar , tea bags nd coffee , 2 biscuits …. Hmm rise and shine!!! So the trip of another 500 kms to b done in 6 hrs… brace yourself!!! Thn arrived the newspaper nd by the time I was don browsin one of them the waiter , nicely clad in ethnic Punjabi wear , asked me wht I would prefer for breakfast. Quite surprisingly thy had 3 choices…. Idli sambar , aloo proota and bread omelet... it was followed closely by the next tea / coffee tray… quite a bargain I would say for 600/- … nyway rejuvenated , owing to the refreshments , I was all ready for a nice stint along side the footboard. To my dismay, I found out the the new coaches didn’t hav any bars along the doors … damn those enginners!!! So after loitering about for arnd 15 mins nd failing miserably to find a way out to stand on the footboard I went bak nly to find my seat occupied L … a small kid was put to sleep thr ... I suppose if tht wasn’t yours u could say “ ohhhh hw cuteee!!!” bt trust me it is’nt ny fun whn u r comin bak all frustrated :-/ ….. so thn I started walking to other coaches to find ny place to sit… in true testimony to the day I was having I think the conjecture isn’t for nostradamus to predict… I didn’t find ny seats… jst whn I thgt I had to contine rest of the journey standing I found 1 coach which had a foldable seat for the tte to sit( long liv the engineer hu designed it!!)… in quite a U - turn of fortunes I sat thr jst next to the open carriage door \m/ …. So arrived at new delhi station at arnd 11.30… there we were welcomed by a nice AC bus … we were goin to AGRA!!!!

So arnd 500 kms frm amritsar… thn to agra another 203 kms by road… by about 2.00PM we went to a road side dhaba nd had veg biriyani…so much for a scent of true north India cuisine… so we reached agra by about 4.30 … ( en route we saw mathura refinery :P … srry excitement of an enginner !!! ) nd we went to the TAJ MAHAL… let me nt waste words on describing the taj, I am sure many u`ll b able to find much better write ups!!! So by around 6 – 6.30 we left the taj and went for shopping for leather goods… shoes , bags , wallets … nd by around 8 PM we left for delhi!!! So another 4.5 hr journey!!! We had lunch at about 11 PM at a place near palwal nd crashed into the bed when we went bak to the hotel in karol bagh…. Obviously, a total of close to 1000kms a day had taken its toll on us… thank goodness the next day morning was off …. Our flight to Bombay en route to Singapore was around 4 P.M….