Train journey from hell and the start of Jaipur

So we have now finally arrived in Jaipur after the worst train journey in the entire world, every compliment we previously made to India's railway has now been retracted! First off we arrived at the station at 5:45AM to find that none of the stations announcements had been turned on. So we spent about 30 minutes trying to find out which platform our train was on as there were no railway staff around and only one person at the ticket desk, who couldn't really speak English and didn't seem to bothered about answering anyone's questions. After finally finding the right platform the station came to life with windows xp welcome sound and the departures board finally lit up. Unfortunately for us, our train was going to be delayed by 2 hours!

Soooo 2 very grumpy hours later our train pulls in, we had to run about a mile to reach our end of the train with our massive bags only to find the right carriage and promptly start receiving abuse from a very loud and assertive Indian woman. Turns out our entire carriage had been hijacked by a group of 70 Jainist pilgrims, who were trying to rearrange the whole of aircon class (about 5 carriages) so they could all sit together. Not too impressed with this, we decided to improve Anglo-Indian relations by ignoring them and taking our seats in the middle of their jolly.

Big mistake. We were quickly surrounded by all the children who decided we would be their morning entertainment...not really what we wanted after only 4 hours sleep, but hey we decided we'd go with it; after all it was only a 4.5 hour journey. However, it seemed like our day was only going to get worse when James started chatting to one of the blokes - apparently the train was a new (very flakey) service, and if the train was 3 or 4 hours delayed that was considered on time. They had come prepared with enough food and snacks to kill a hippo, we on the other hand had missed brekkie and wernt very happy with the idea of staying on the hell train till mid-afternoon with no food or water!

As by this point it seemed the journey couldnt possibly get any worse, we accepted our fate and got on with it. Luckily the Jainists decided to forgive us for taking their seats (they are pacifists after all according to the guide book,) and shared their snacks and water with us. The rest of the journey picked up and we chatted happily and ate all their food! :-p



The train ended up being 4.5 hours late so we arrived in Jaipur at 5pm (it almost got a whole lot worse with us accidentally jumping off at the wrong stop then thanking god they dont bother shutting the doors on Indian trains so we could jump back on after it had started moving!)

After all this excitement/torture, we've now landed on our feet and are staying in a gorgeous hotel. They've decorated it to perfection, the room is massive and even has a bath (yey!) Its still less than 10 quid a night for the 2 of us as well, and is easily nicer than any hotel we've stayed in so far.

We're off to explore the Pink City now, Jaipurs ancient walled city. Then hopefully its off to start some shopping....

p.s photos to come