Sleepers

Bani Park Palace Hotel, Jaipur

When last we spoke Alex and I were about to go and catch a sleeper train from Agra to Jaipur. This would leave Agra at 20.10 and arrive in Jaipur at 01.25. Upon arrival at Agra Fort station (an hour early, just in case) we were told the train would be late by an unspecified amount of time ("perhaps one hour, perhaps more"). After 2 hours sitting on our rucksacks and a lot of Twenty Questions the train pulled in, due to depart 20 minutes later. Sleeper class didn't seem very chilled, essentially 3-tier bunk beds not really long enough to comfortably house a 6'2" westerner, and with no seeming regard paid to the reservation system to which we had so carefully adhered. With a mother and daughter and an old man asleep in our respective berths we managed to find two adjacent top bunks and squeeze into them. A word of warning at this juncture - "air-cooled" does not mean "air-conditioned", it means there is a window. After a few minutes in what increasingly felt like a horizontal prison cell at altitude, and with the train nearly ready to depart, someone arrived at my berth and said he had booked it. I said someone was asleep in the one I booked. I showed him my ticket, and with the engines beginning to fire he said we were on the wrong train. We scrambled off in time.

After a change of platform and a further hour's wait, with the train now nearly three hours late and with no prospect of getting to Jaipur before 4am, we decided to stay another night in Agra and try again in the morning. Upon return to the city we walked round every hotel we could find without luck, before returning to our previous night's lodgings for one more plead. A gem of a man (if you're in Agra stay in the Sidartha Hotel) switched some people around and we were shown up to a little bit of loveliness in the shape of a clean bed and functioning lavatory. Rather pathetically it was one of the best feelings of my life.

We resolved not to catch any more sleeper trains.

Took the bus to Jaipur the following day, which at 5-and-a-half hours isn't much longer than the train. Not a great deal to report from the Pink City so far. It is significantly more commercially developed than our previous locations; more lights and shops with recognisable names. After what felt like our first brush with untamed India this doesn't feel like a bad thing. With this in mind I spent a good couple of hours this morning watching the test match on the tv in our room. India are getting rolled over, but Sehwag got a pleasing hundred. I will check the Times of India tomorrow to see if it is this feat or Dale Steyn's game-changing seven wickets which generates more excitement.

First Kingfisher last night. I hadn't particularly missed it and won't be hurrying to have another. Wouldn't mind some meat though.

They won't all be this long, or this frequent. I just wanted to tell that train story.

Over.