Trip to India - day 3

Woke up early again to catch my early train to Jaipur. Was initially worried that my driver wouldn't turn up. In fact, the hotel management advised me to walk to the Eastern gate checkpoint and catch an auto-rickshaw there as they didn't believe he would turn up as well.

Nevertheless, I thought I would wait and see and if he failed to turn up, then I would walk to the checkpoint.

At 5.15am, he turned up. Yay! Was very glad he did. It was a quick short ride, about 2km to the train station. As he did not mention a price, I gave him Rs100, which I thought was a reasonable amount. During the daytime, the same trip would have only cost Rs50 and one is expected to pay 25% extra for out-of-hours (11pm-5am). And this was actually in-hours now.

And guess what? He complained it was too little. I asked him how much he wanted, and this time he said, another Rs100. What a total rip-off. Rs200 for a short 2km ride. I could have refused to pay him or give him less but it was in the early hours of the morning, with me, alone with my bags in a desolated train station. I decided it was smarter to pay him off.

At the same time, I stupidly blame myself for not agreeing on a price at the start. I have no one to blame but myself. Boy, was I pissed at myself.

The train was scheduled to depart at 6.15am and I was informed that it was delayed by an hour. Oh well, that's not too bad, I guess. Delays are to be expected. However, as time passed, we received information that the train was delayed again and again and again. It was miserable waiting at the train station, where there were no proper seats, no decent food facility and definitely no functional toilet facility. At this point, I really hated travelling alone.

Agra Fort Railway Station in the early hours of the morning

The train arrived 4 hours later, which I was very thankful for. This time, I was not seated in First Class as it didn't have any. I was seated in a Sleeper coach, where there are 3 levels of bunk-bed type seats. At this point, I was extremely miserable on the train. I was hungry but was afraid to buy food from the children who walked by selling sandwiches, thirsty as I did not want to drink water for fear of having to use the toilet and also there would be no one to watch my bags if I did, so so tired and sleep-deprived. Furthermore, there are no announcements on the train, so was also afraid of missing my stop. I tried to take short naps every now and then which was made difficult by a toddler speaking non-stop. At the end, I succumbed to buying a hot egg sandwhich for Rs10.

The journey took 5 hours and by the time I arrive in Jaipur, it was 4pm in the afternoon. A whole day of sight-seeing wasted due to the train delay. I stayed at the Hotel Pearl Palace which was pretty decent with an awesome restaurant on the rooftop. And best of all, it had free internet connection.

As it was late, I decided to rest and relax for the rest of the evening.