Friday was travel day. We had completed our time in Delhi and it was time to move on to Agra, site of the famous Taj Mahal. In the morning we sat with Bilal, our newly discovered travel coordinator. He had set up a package so we would have a driver to drop us off and pick us up from our rail and train journeys, as well as drive us to various site. Bilal gave us some advice for the train station, which would prove to be our most difficult test yet. He told us that people would approach us outside and try to confuse us and tell us that the train was cancelled and try to take us to hire our own taxi. Yeah, that did happen.
But first, our driver pulled up to our hotel door about 15 minutes late. He wasn't as smooth with his old van as Dinesh had been the past two days. He jerked the van through the crowded Old Delhi streets. These were the streets we were not brave enough this trip to walk through. They were crowded with people, motorcycles, cars, rickshaws, animals, shop fronts, and lots of trash. It was a chaotic mess we weren't ready to traverse.
He dropped us off at the train station 1km away. Sure enough, just as we are approaching the security gate there is a young man kindly trying to help. He seems to know our train number, which is an easy assumption given our arrival time. He points up to the reader board and says the train has been cancelled. He reassures us that he wants no money, just trying to help. The reader board is flashing quickly between Hindi and English, with some confusing information. From a quick glance it seems that our train is only delayed by an hour. The station is a mass of confusion, of people pushing in lines, of predators and prey. We did not want to be prey. I knew this guy was trying to bilk us somehow. I thanked him and told him several times we did not need him.
I wrapped my arm around my wife and we huddled to make a plan. We spent a few moments trying to understand the reader board, but really needed to talk to someone official. We tried talking to some security guards, but they were not interested in helping us. We went over to the service desks. In the first line we stood for several minutes waiting to ask a question, or change our ticket. There was a man standing there and he asked if I was from Sweden. It must have been my pale complexion. "No, I'm from the US", I said. "The greatest and most powerful nation in the world", he replied. I shrugged. People were trying to get in front of us and the man turned kind. He encouraged us to push our way up to the front and not let anybody get in our way. Audrey turned into bear mamma and barked a few people away. It was working. We finally got to the front and the woman pointed me to another line. Window 61 to be exact, the "Inquiries" line. Okay, so we hopped over to that line and fought our way to the front. I started to ask a question, but the woman was counting a wad of money. I patiently waited. When she stopped she looked at our papers and told us the train was merely delayed by about an hour. Okay, that solved, we knew the first guy was a shiester.
We made our way to the main platform, just past the security gates. The security was pretty shoddy. They had a machine to run the luggage through, but no metal detectors. As we were putting our bags on there, people were trying to shove their own bags in ahead of ours. I went through first and started pulling our bags. Audrey started to panic because she didn't see her purse/pack coming through. You know, the one with all the travel documents and passport? It did come through, but was delayed by the other bags. That was a learning moment. We decided we would stand on both ends of the machine next time to make sure all our bags were in and out and in our control.
We started to calm a bit. The people on the platform were all passengers, and the predators seemed to be only on the outside. We started to absorb the environment and try to understand which car we would be on. We wandered over and stood next to an old, friendly looking, Indian couple. The woman was short, and wore elegant colorful clothes and beautiful makeup. Audrey and I both realized these people looked trustworthy so she leaned over and started asking the woman questions. She immediately turned helpful and looked at our ticket info, explaining how the train boarding process worked. She also consoled us about the shiesters outside. It seems that many Indian people are embarrassed about the way people are preyed upon. She spoke with us for a few minutes and advised we move down a few cars and wait for the seat assignment papers to be posted on each car. We asked her about whether we should buy chains for our luggage, and she explained when and why we would need them.
We walked down to the car we would likely board. A few minutes later she returned to check on us. She said she found a place to purchase a chain and she would help us get it. We walked down with her to a little storefront. I gave her the money and she spoke to the clerk, buying it for us and giving me the change. She was a truly kind soul and seemed to remind me of someone. I later realized that this lady was much like my grandmother. She too was short, punchy, and always taking care of people.
After over an hour of waiting on the platform, the train finally started to come alive, with service people going on and off. Eventually the seating assignments were posted. We went and talked to the conductor who pointed us to the right car. We squeezed ourselves along the narrow isle ways. This was a 2nd class sleeper car. When we arrived at our birth there were some westerners already there. Ahh, familiar faces. We quickly got to know them. The were Londoners, a father and son. As we waited for the train to start, we talked India, travel, and both British and American politics. It was a refreshing and comfortingly familiar interaction. They were assigned only the top bunks, but we offered our side seats to them as we took up on the other side of the isle.
When the train finally started moving and we left the station area, a whole difficult world was revealed to us. What we had seen in Old Delhi was only a mere foretaste of the poverty that lines the railways and outskirts of the city. What we saw were shanti towns, where each "home" was made of whatever scrap material could be found. There were people cooking over open fires, children playing games like "hit the rock with the stick" and hopscotch. People were lounging in makeshift sofas by the rails. Cows and goats and pigs were walking around. Garbage was everywhere. Whole areas of waste plastic and paper, and who knows what else. Flattened cowpies could be seen drying in groups in different places. I saw satellite dishes on many of the huts. We had seen this in Israel too with the Bedouin camps. We saw mile after mile of this extreme poverty which leaves many questions in your mind. This is something I'm still trying to process.
The "Express" train made many stops along the way to pick up extra people. An Indian man came on after awhile and was seated across from us. He seemed fairly wealthy and well educated, but his English was not that good. The train ride was a few hours. We were supposed to arrive at 5pm, but got in around 8pm. The train stopped without warning, and we were told that this was our exit. We scrambled to get our luggage and got off the train. The station was pretty dark. We looked around for some guidance. A trustworthy young man motioned us to the exit. We made our way outside and our driver was waiting with our sign. "Mr. Jason and Audrey" it said. Another savior with a white car.
We got in, buckled up, and made our way down more crazy and chaotic streets. The drive was fairly short. We arrived at "The Grand Imperial" hotel. And it was just that. The service here is quite a few notches above the hotel in Delhi. They put flower wreaths around us when we arrived and got us up to our room. We had been upgraded to a suite. The room was huge, with a sitting room to the side. The ceilings look to be about 12-14ft tall. The outside hallways are a colonnade of arches. Audrey was in heaven. We were both in heaven.
We settled for a few minutes and then went down to dinner. There were many servers and I was a bit uncomfortable being doted upon so much. They seated us and served out our meals on our plates. Then... they said they would have live music. Audrey asked, "when", and he replied, "just wait!" A few minutes later a sitar and tabla player took their place just in front of our table. The sitar player did all the talking. He was a well spoken and educated man. My wife mentioned that I had both a sitar and tabla and that I was learning, so he shifted over into teacher mode a bit. They played a few ragas and folk music, and it was divine to sit and eat and drink and absorb the music we had grown to love.
It was a surreal end to a surreal day. We experienced the worst of people. We experienced the best of people, those with gentle, kind, caring hearts. We saw the poorest outcasts of society, and were at the end of day basking in the luxury of great space, great food, and great music. I am not sure yet how or why this all came to us on the same day. It's more to process as we explore this place of extremes.
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