Leaving Delhi

It was good to have a lie-in for a change, and a nice relaxed breakfast. There was only one problem though…it was raining! This just would not do, but it wasn’t all that bad, nothing on the Bangkok scale of things. All we needed to do was pack up our things and get out of the Aura Hotel, once and for all. It was a shame, as when we arrived it seemed pretty swanky, but it quickly took a turn for the worse after that. We hoped that the rest of our hotels in India wouldn’t have people shouting random things from outside our room (we think it looked out onto a mental asylum, but couldn’t be sure as the window was frosted), a very noisy water pipe in the wall and absolute numpties running the place.

Goodbye Hotel Aura!!

It was a short hike down to the train station and once we had barged our way through the other passengers we saw that our train was already delayed. We found a quiet place up near the Foreign Tourist office and sat on a dirty couch playing some cards to pass the time. Once it neared the time we were due to leave we headed to the platform and found our names on the sheet of paper plastered to the outside of the train carriage.

The excellent reservation system

We were sharing a bench/bed with two other chaps and/or a small child who was flitting between one of the chaps and her mum on another bed. The bed/bench opposite was occupied by 5 more people so the only thing to do was plug in the earphones and wait out the 3 hour journey. We would be arriving at just after 5:00pm which would give us plenty of time to get organised and fed at the hotel.

Our companions on the train

We didn’t get in til after half 7. It wasn’t a particularly nice journey either as the little kid was shouting and crying for most of it and we were cramped up against the window on a pretty uncomfortable seat. But arrive we did, and thankfully our man from the hotel was still waiting for us. We jumped in his tuk-tuk and sped down to the Maya Hotel, where I had stayed 5 years ago on my last visit to India. We checked in and got straight to the rooftop restaurant for some much-needed food.