Delhi – Udaipur via Sleeper Train, 1 night

21^st – 22^nd March.

…Tock

We had to seriously revise our plans today. Merryl had a conference to attend in Chicago the next month so we needed to obtain, at least for M, a multiple-entry visa for Paksitan. This did not appear to be possible. So instead of following the Silk Road: India - Pakistan – China - Tibet – Nepal, we decided to change our itinerary: the new Route was to be India – Nepal – India - Pakistan – China. This would save a great deal of hassle trying to to obtain our Paksitani= visa here in New Delhi… and time was marching on.

We then dumped out bags in long-term storage, then headed for New Delhi Train Station to grab a sleeper-train to Udaipur. Tomorrow was the festival of Holli, of colour and light, of the coming of spring and of the spirit of mischief As we walked to the train station with our backpacks we were pelted with water-bombs from nameless assailants hiding in doorways and upstairs windows. We passed an English guy trying to get back to his hotel, soaking wet. He was jumping from shadow to shadow trying to avoid stepping out into the sunlight. A prelude to Holli.

The train was leaving at 8:30pm. We got to the station and grabbed a light snack. I ordered a spring-roll which was then micro-waved to a steaming pulp of grease in front of my eyes. I left it where it bubbled and drank a tea instead. We then headed onto the station and located our cabins. Sleeper trains in India are great fun – when you have the time to relax on them – to be on. There is a vast and complex rail network connection the whole country. Train journeys can take anwhere from six hours to three days. To accommodate travellers each carriage (and on sleeper trains there are dozens) is comprised of a series of booths. Each booth has an lower, middle, and upper berth. In the day the lower and middle berths are used as normal seats. At night they fold up and down and become beds of sorts. Although you get allocated tickets for your birth the chances are when you arrive you will find at least 8 people squashed into your seat. It’s all good fun. As it happens, there was an entire family in our seats. Instead of kicking them out we left them where they were and found seats next door. We sat reading until we were knackered and then swiped someone elses berths at the top of the next compartment. It meant we had to sleep under the fans which were blowing 2 inches from our faces. It was freezing. Around 2am the family in our seats got off so we claimed our seats – indeed the entire compartment – for ourselves. We dozed on and off for the next couple of hours then finally, motivated by hunger, I jumped off at a station and grabbed some bhajis and rice. Then we sat and watched the sun come up as we trundled toward the station of Udaipur.