5/11/12
Eff you, May 11th. Seriously. I left Jaiselmer on 5/10 at 5:30pm. I arrived in Jaipur this morning at 5am. I missed my stop (there is no warning/call/anything) but got off at the next station also in Jaipur. I was bombarded. No, I don't want to haggle at 5 in the morning. No, I don't want all of the men in this boys' club called India to stare at me as I haul my big ass bag, back pain and all, through the crowd of eager, pushy tuc-tuc drivers.
I got in a tuc-tuc, went to a coffee shop. It was closed. I had breakfast at a hotel instead. Then back to the main station to drop off my bag in the "Cloak Room" (Lady in White, anyone?), got in the line of foreigners to buy a ticket from Agera to Varanasi. Long wait, lots of people cutting in line every second. I've slept on trains the past two nights. Eff you all.
I took a load off in the visitor section of the train station, charged my phone, escaped the throngs of people. I told the guy there I'm just killing time until I go get a bus to Agra in a couple of hours. Suddenly, a cop showed up, saying a train is leaving for Agra in 30 minutes. I'd be there by 3pm. Awesome. He dragged me to the front of a line, where I bought a general, no AC ticket, and sweated it out for four hours, only to realize literally after all that time that the train has gone to Delhi--not Agra. Seriously? Fast forward to a HUGE EFFING HASSLE at the train station where no one spoke any English. I bribed some dude really way too much to get me a ticket to Agra on another train from another station--this alone was a 2 hour process.
So, yay. I'm on a train to Agra, finally. Four hours. OK, not bad. Expensive bribe, but I get to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise and get to sleep an entire night! in an actual bed. (Another night train tomorrow.) Oh, but what's that? We're experiencing technical difficulties? We're running 2 hours behind? Ten loud old men wanted to just hang out in my little cabin? There's a mouse scurrying about maybe finding its way into my backpack? People are loudly snoring all around me?
So just eff this day. It has been an enormous waste of my time, energy, money, and sanity. And I haven't eaten since breakfast and ran out of water. UGH.
Eff you, May 11th. Seriously. I left Jaiselmer on 5/10 at 5:30pm. I arrived in Jaipur this morning at 5am. I missed my stop (there is no warning/call/anything) but got off at the next station also in Jaipur. I was bombarded. No, I don't want to haggle at 5 in the morning. No, I don't want all of the men in this boys' club called India to stare at me as I haul my big ass bag, back pain and all, through the crowd of eager, pushy tuc-tuc drivers.
I got in a tuc-tuc, went to a coffee shop. It was closed. I had breakfast at a hotel instead. Then back to the main station to drop off my bag in the "Cloak Room" (Lady in White, anyone?), got in the line of foreigners to buy a ticket from Agera to Varanasi. Long wait, lots of people cutting in line every second. I've slept on trains the past two nights. Eff you all.
I took a load off in the visitor section of the train station, charged my phone, escaped the throngs of people. I told the guy there I'm just killing time until I go get a bus to Agra in a couple of hours. Suddenly, a cop showed up, saying a train is leaving for Agra in 30 minutes. I'd be there by 3pm. Awesome. He dragged me to the front of a line, where I bought a general, no AC ticket, and sweated it out for four hours, only to realize literally after all that time that the train has gone to Delhi--not Agra. Seriously? Fast forward to a HUGE EFFING HASSLE at the train station where no one spoke any English. I bribed some dude really way too much to get me a ticket to Agra on another train from another station--this alone was a 2 hour process.
So, yay. I'm on a train to Agra, finally. Four hours. OK, not bad. Expensive bribe, but I get to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise and get to sleep an entire night! in an actual bed. (Another night train tomorrow.) Oh, but what's that? We're experiencing technical difficulties? We're running 2 hours behind? Ten loud old men wanted to just hang out in my little cabin? There's a mouse scurrying about maybe finding its way into my backpack? People are loudly snoring all around me?
So just eff this day. It has been an enormous waste of my time, energy, money, and sanity. And I haven't eaten since breakfast and ran out of water. UGH.
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