DELHI-AMRITSAR. 17th October

Friday (leaving Delhi). Up at 7.30 to my battery-replenished mobile AND a small alarm clock that I bought yesterday for the equivalent of 3 dollars fifty, as then I thought I wouldn't have the mobile alarm. After paying the hotel and an early breakfast at the Everest Cafe, I'm at the station by 10.30. The 11.10 scheduled departure time is nearer 12.00 midday, and several hundreds of people get onto the train, but I am the only westerner, as far as I can see. My expectations of something superior to 1st class are soon dashed, as the 'sleeping berths' hold anything up to 4 people (lower bunks) and 2 people (upper bunks). A woman with a baby, accompanied by her husband) is sitting in my window seat, so I take the aisle side, which suits me as then I can stretch my legs. The 'express' train stops many times, with a constantly-changing set of characters, and is sometimes packed, then somewhat more empty. The ticket inspector only appears once, and as far as I can see only the couple with the baby and I have tickets, so I don't know how that works. During the journey there would have been somewhere between at least a hundred, and maybe two hundred characters coming through the train, selling cups of tea, or hamburgers, or you name it that you could eat. Beggars of all descriptions, from the blind and crippled to the pseudo crippled, to women with babies, and little girl 'tumblers' doing cartwheels along the aisle. My favourites were two bombastic drag queens impeccably dressed to the nines, and a little boy playing a shrill sort of Jew's harp, where people were giving him something just so that he'd stop.

But we are at last travelling through open country, and it is great to feel real fresh air in your lungs. My Vodafone India starts sending me messages, (lots of them), and a fresh lot each time we cross to another state, the same as when you cross into a new country in Europe. I can't ring out to numbers in India on it, but to my delight I find that I can SMS Oz, and lots of frivolous messages are exchanged. It gives me something to do, as nobody in the carriage seems to speak English. After Ludhiana many noisy and spirited youths get on, and the carriage is really crowded almost all the way to Amritsar, where we arrive a bit after 8pm.