We arrive very early in the morning, and are surprised to find that Delhi has a very nice airport. We indulge in some overpriced Costa Coffee and Lisa has a cheese toastie which includes a large volume of spicy roasted peppers - yikes! Then we hop on the (again, surprisingly nice) Metro to city center. There is a convenient stop at New Delhi train station, although we discover there is actually a major road and a large parking lot (full of tuk-tuks and taxis) between us and the station. As we walk, we pass a "deluxe toilet" which appears to be not much better than a porta-potty. This kind of sets our standard of expectations for Delhi, especially as we are picking our way through all kinds of trash and mysterious liquids as we walk.
When we reach the train station, things start to go a bit
pear-shaped; there is a security scanner, and the guard there won't let us enter the station
without a ticket although we've read that the Foreign Ticket office is actually inside the station. Instead, he says we have to go to DTTCS(?) which is far
away, and we must get a tuk-tuk to go there. We're not keen on this and
set out to walk. Another man tells us the same thing, but we
continue walking. A tuk-tuk driver starts following us, trying to
convince us to get a ride. We encounter an “information center”
which has very little information (and even that is a phone call
away) but DOES have a map of the city, so we know we're going the
right way for “Connaught Place” where the train ticket office is
ostensibly located.
We arrive there
to find it's a HUGE circle, most of which seems to be under
construction. Another person confirms that the ticket office is not nearby, so we finally jump in a tuk-tuk and it takes us around to the other side of the circle (about 10-15 minutes ride, so we're glad we gave up on walking - it's hot!).
Finally we are at the office, and a nice customer service fellow invites us to set down our packs and enjoy a cup of chai. That's about where the fun ends, because he seems to be unwilling or unable to book just a train ticket for us - instead, he keeps trying to sell us some package tours - including mysterious hotels & several journeys including a private car & driver at one stage. Luckily we know the price of the train ticket and recognize that his prices are at least 1000% higher - plus, the itineraries are much longer than what we are looking for, as we are keen to get to Nepal and start volunteering at the school. We refuse (several times) and finally take his card, with a promise to call him later if we are interested in booking.
We step outside to find our tuk-tuk waiting (must be a slow day, as we were inside for at least 45 minutes!). He says he will take us to the train station to buy the tickets - but then he stops at another ticket agency not far away! We protest, but the fellows in this office point out that we're not obligated to buy from them; and they claim that they will sell us just a train ticket. This turns out to be completely untrue - the guy here is much more "hard sell" and even tries to convince Chris to commit to something while Lisa is in the bathroom! When he shows us a computer screen which "proves" the unavailability of our desired journey (but is actually for one obscure ticket quota, and only shows the results for a single train rather than the 7 or 8 services that run each day), Lisa has had enough and marches out of the office in a huff. Not surprisingly, our tuk-tuk driver is lying in wait, but we refuse his services and walk back to the train station.
With anger and frustration on our side, we storm the "no entry" staircase at the station (handily, it appears to be time for tea so the guards are not paying much attention). We march through the station but still can't find the Foreign Ticket office, so we ask a passer-by for help. He takes us out a different exit and points us into a ticket office - but we quickly discover that this is for locals, not tourists, and now the security guy on this side won't let us back inside. We're not falling for that again, and stroll casually through an unmanned doorway. FINALLY, we see a sign for the Foreign Ticket office and bolt up the stairs before anyone tries to evict us. Check out the sign in this photo - pity they don't put it outside the station!
Once inside, it's pretty simple - we fill in a request form, join a funny queue that shuffles along a series of couches (dragging our packs along with us as we sidle along), chat to some lovely Canadian tourists, and finally obtain train tickets for the very next night. We have to abandon any plans to visit other locations in India, because the ticket agent clearly wants to keep things simple - and at this stage, so do we! Tickets in hand, we make our way out of the station - next step is to find the Nirvana/Holy Cow hostel in the south of the city. We haven't booked but on the Hostelbookers site there were plenty of available beds, so we're sure we'll be fine to just show up.
We follow their directions from Saket station but the place seems to be miles away, and we have to ask several people to point us towards the landmarks they've mentioned. Meanwhile we are dodging streams of mysterious substances, sidewalk vendors, wandering animals and crazy traffic! Finally we see some foreigners who confirm that the hostel is nearby. They welcome us warmly and invite us to relax & cool off for a few minutes before sorting out our room. They even have cold beer, woo hoo!
We decide to take a double room as it's pretty cheap, and we're too tired & grumpy to socialise. We find a giant poo in our toilet (welcoming present?) and it takes us a while to work out how to switch on the water so we can flush - perhaps the previous guest never worked it out! This doesn't fill us with confidence about the abilities of the cleaners, but then again this is India so we weren't expecting much- especially at this price! We set up our mosquito net and have a quick nap, awaking just in time to enjoy the "free curry" (90% rice, 8% vegetables, tiny bit of curry-ness - but free, and food!). Then we crash out for the night after a long and irritating day.
We have set our alarm so we don't miss the free breakfast - but unfortunately our clocks are still on Jordanian time, so we actually wake up after check-out time. The receptionist appears not long afterwards, and hovers outside rather amusingly (he keeps saying sorry, he hopes he's not disturbing us...but he doesn't go away either). We quickly pack and stow our bags in a big communal room. Then we set out to visit the nearby "Garden of Five Senses".
It's a pretty cool place, with lots to see, hear and smell (not sure about taste or touch - well, maybe the latter as indicated in the photo - it's a popular place for young couples to meet!). We stroll around for a couple of hours just enjoying the peace & quiet. We are impressed with the views of Delhi which show that there's a lot of green space throughout the city (forest or similar - quite wild, rather than parkland).
It starts to get a bit windy, which means a lot of dust blowing around, so we hop in a tuk-tuk to the metro station. We take a journey to the Lotus Temple, which belongs to the Baha'i faith. They have a really interesting information center as well, where we learn that Baha'i is similar to Buddhism- not really a religion, but rather a philosophy or way of living to promote harmony amongst people & the nature. It's particularly cool that they focus on educating women, with the reasoning that mothers are the main teachers for their children - so it's important that they are well-informed & good role models!
Then we queue up to deposit our shoes at a funny little sunken checkroom (the window where you pass your shoes in is actually at ankle level) and tiptoe across the hot tiles to visit the temple itself. The lotus shape and incredible whiteness are pretty to look at, but oddly the whole place feels a bit cold and impersonal, especially since the access is strictly controlled - we enter in large groups, and have to sit in perfect silence inside before filing out a few minutes later. It seems at odds with the information about inclusiveness that we've read a few minutes before - surely people have their own preferred way of worship, which might include singing, standing, etc...?
Outside the temple, we are nabbed by several Indian tourists who want to take photos of or with us. This happened a bit in Jordan so it's not so much of a surprise, but it still seems pretty funny that their photo albums have these random pictures of strangers!
We rush back to the hostel to pick up our bags, stopping along the way to order a take-out curry from a small restaurant that caught our eye earlier. It's so small that we can't both enter with our backpacks on (although they've somehow managed to squeeze in a sink and a table!), so Lisa waits outside. She manages to catch the attention of a tuk-tuk, who kindly waits until Chris emerges, and we balance ourselves precariously in the vehicle. Unbelievably, the driver tries to convince a cute French girl to join us on the ride to the metro station, but his price is too high (and surely she's thinking it's a bit of a tight squeeze already!) so she refuses. In a few minutes we are at Saket station and it's a fairly easy trip to the train station while balancing our packs and our dinner!
Once inside the station, we try to find a spot to enjoy our meal, but a young boy latches on to us and keeps pestering us for money. Lisa shows him her empty pockets but he's not taking no for an answer, and even retrieves a younger boy (maybe his brother) to help harass us. We teach him the meaning of "go away" ;-) Finally he does realise that his efforts are fruitless and the boys wander off. We crouch furtively in a corner with our packs tucked safely behind us, and wolf down our curry (which is pretty delicious!). It's so big that we can't finish it, and we look around for the boys to no avail - so eventually we leave it next to a old fellow who's sleeping nearby. He's so thin that we hope everyone takes pity & leaves it there for him to consume when he wakes up.
We head for the platform, as the information board indicates that our train is actually 10 minutes early (soon!), but soon discover that this is a complete fabrication. After waiting over an hour there is still no train, and of course no information - the train has vanished from the board as if it already departed! Luckily it does eventually arrive, and we marvel at the lowest class carriages which are packed to the rafters; people are literally throwing themselves onboard, and clinging to the outside of the carriage. We are very grateful for our relatively spacious sleeper carriage, and Lisa is particularly glad to see that she has the 3rd tier (top) bunk, meaning that she can hang over the end without kicking passers-by! We spend some time watching the various tea, food and amusement vendors who work their way through the aisles, but it's late so we soon jump into bed.
The night passes quite peacefully and we all get up around the same time, to enjoy a cup of hot chai from the strolling vendor. Then we sit awkwardly with our compartment-mates (all Indian) on the lowest bunk while the sights of India slowly pass by through the window. The train makes a long stop somewhere for no obvious reason, and eventually (now that we are 3 hours delayed) people start to get a bit more chatty - the fellow across from us borrows our cards to show us some tricks, and a young lad (completely unrelated) joins him with his own repertoire; and one of the younger members of our compartment, Adil, turns out to speak English quite well so we have a good chat. He gives us an interesting insight on the problems we had with buying train tickets. He points out that Indian people don't read (and it's true, we had really noticed this on the Delhi metro - everyone is just sitting there doing nothing at all!) so in order to find out anything they just ask someone else. This means that misinformation is spread very easily - so he reckons that many of the people who told us about the various ticket offices actually believed that they were the only/best option. This makes us feel a little less angry...
Finally, we arrive at Gorakhpur station, about 4 hours late! We had discussed sharing a taxi to the Nepali border with our card-trick neighbour, but we can't spot him in the crowd. Instead, we team up with a traveller we'd spotted at the station in Delhi (Martin from Germany) - he has lots of bike panniers but no bike. It turns out to be quite a mission for him to retrieve the bike from the "large baggage" office (the only person who can help is at lunch....then they can't find his bike, etc...) so we guard his belongings while he sorts it out. He's also pretty fed up with India after travelling here for a few weeks, so we're all keen to find the bus to the border. Of course, this turns out to be a long walk, with a bit of misdirection from tourist bus offices, but eventually we do find it and the bus is miraculously "just about to leave". We are told to put the bike on the top of the bus. Initially our backpacks are OK inside the bus, at the front, but suddenly they need to be on top as well, so Chris and Martin play a fun balancing game on the bus roof with all our belongings (oh, and the bus occasionally lurching forwards while they're up there - well, he is using a rock as a brake somehow so maybe he can't really help it....?).
The bus leaves the station with just us and one other fellow aboard. It travels about 100m before stopping on the street next to a large crowd of Indian people. They proceed to stuff themselves in every nook & cranny of the bus - now we understand why our luggage is up top, and we are very grateful to have boarded first and have seats! Eventually the bus is full to bursting, and we head off down the road towards the border town of Sunauli.
Amazingly we arrive safely, although we are a little perplexed when everyone else gets off but the driver indicates that we 3 should stay on board. We're also getting a bit edgy because this border has a bad reputation at night and it's nearing sunset. It turns out that he wants to turn around before we take the time to unload our luggage - and perhaps to leave us in a better position for local people to gawk at us as we disembark ;-)
A friendly local stops us to ask whether we have the money & passport photos for our Nepali visas, which we need to get as we cross the border. He helpfully points out a shop where I can photocopy my passport (to use in place of a passport photo, since these proved impossible to find in Amman or Delhi), and another shop where we can change our rupees - Indian for Nepali! There is a lot of fraud with the Indian notes apparently, so the large ones aren't accepted in Nepal.
We're initially a bit suspicious of this unsolicited helpfulness, but he doesn't seem to have anything to gain by it and his information is in line with what we've heard from other travellers. He even points out the Indian immigration "desk", which bizarrely is a small table hidden behind the wares of the neighbouring shop and also a curtain. It's manned by one elderly fellow who isn't in uniform, and feels very odd - but he has all the necessary documents & stamps, and doesn't try to charge us anything, so we guess it's correct!
Finally we are ready, and we walk across the (very busy) border to Nepal. It's one of the oddest border crossings we've ever seen. Most of the traffic is local (Indian or Nepali) so it's totally open, and no one stops us to check if we have visas for Nepal - we have to use our own initiative to spot the small immigration office and go in to get our visas. This turns out to be an easy process - we all breathe a sigh of relief to be out of India!
Finally we are at the office, and a nice customer service fellow invites us to set down our packs and enjoy a cup of chai. That's about where the fun ends, because he seems to be unwilling or unable to book just a train ticket for us - instead, he keeps trying to sell us some package tours - including mysterious hotels & several journeys including a private car & driver at one stage. Luckily we know the price of the train ticket and recognize that his prices are at least 1000% higher - plus, the itineraries are much longer than what we are looking for, as we are keen to get to Nepal and start volunteering at the school. We refuse (several times) and finally take his card, with a promise to call him later if we are interested in booking.
We step outside to find our tuk-tuk waiting (must be a slow day, as we were inside for at least 45 minutes!). He says he will take us to the train station to buy the tickets - but then he stops at another ticket agency not far away! We protest, but the fellows in this office point out that we're not obligated to buy from them; and they claim that they will sell us just a train ticket. This turns out to be completely untrue - the guy here is much more "hard sell" and even tries to convince Chris to commit to something while Lisa is in the bathroom! When he shows us a computer screen which "proves" the unavailability of our desired journey (but is actually for one obscure ticket quota, and only shows the results for a single train rather than the 7 or 8 services that run each day), Lisa has had enough and marches out of the office in a huff. Not surprisingly, our tuk-tuk driver is lying in wait, but we refuse his services and walk back to the train station.
With anger and frustration on our side, we storm the "no entry" staircase at the station (handily, it appears to be time for tea so the guards are not paying much attention). We march through the station but still can't find the Foreign Ticket office, so we ask a passer-by for help. He takes us out a different exit and points us into a ticket office - but we quickly discover that this is for locals, not tourists, and now the security guy on this side won't let us back inside. We're not falling for that again, and stroll casually through an unmanned doorway. FINALLY, we see a sign for the Foreign Ticket office and bolt up the stairs before anyone tries to evict us. Check out the sign in this photo - pity they don't put it outside the station!
Once inside, it's pretty simple - we fill in a request form, join a funny queue that shuffles along a series of couches (dragging our packs along with us as we sidle along), chat to some lovely Canadian tourists, and finally obtain train tickets for the very next night. We have to abandon any plans to visit other locations in India, because the ticket agent clearly wants to keep things simple - and at this stage, so do we! Tickets in hand, we make our way out of the station - next step is to find the Nirvana/Holy Cow hostel in the south of the city. We haven't booked but on the Hostelbookers site there were plenty of available beds, so we're sure we'll be fine to just show up.
We follow their directions from Saket station but the place seems to be miles away, and we have to ask several people to point us towards the landmarks they've mentioned. Meanwhile we are dodging streams of mysterious substances, sidewalk vendors, wandering animals and crazy traffic! Finally we see some foreigners who confirm that the hostel is nearby. They welcome us warmly and invite us to relax & cool off for a few minutes before sorting out our room. They even have cold beer, woo hoo!
We decide to take a double room as it's pretty cheap, and we're too tired & grumpy to socialise. We find a giant poo in our toilet (welcoming present?) and it takes us a while to work out how to switch on the water so we can flush - perhaps the previous guest never worked it out! This doesn't fill us with confidence about the abilities of the cleaners, but then again this is India so we weren't expecting much- especially at this price! We set up our mosquito net and have a quick nap, awaking just in time to enjoy the "free curry" (90% rice, 8% vegetables, tiny bit of curry-ness - but free, and food!). Then we crash out for the night after a long and irritating day.
We have set our alarm so we don't miss the free breakfast - but unfortunately our clocks are still on Jordanian time, so we actually wake up after check-out time. The receptionist appears not long afterwards, and hovers outside rather amusingly (he keeps saying sorry, he hopes he's not disturbing us...but he doesn't go away either). We quickly pack and stow our bags in a big communal room. Then we set out to visit the nearby "Garden of Five Senses".
It's a pretty cool place, with lots to see, hear and smell (not sure about taste or touch - well, maybe the latter as indicated in the photo - it's a popular place for young couples to meet!). We stroll around for a couple of hours just enjoying the peace & quiet. We are impressed with the views of Delhi which show that there's a lot of green space throughout the city (forest or similar - quite wild, rather than parkland). 
It starts to get a bit windy, which means a lot of dust blowing around, so we hop in a tuk-tuk to the metro station. We take a journey to the Lotus Temple, which belongs to the Baha'i faith. They have a really interesting information center as well, where we learn that Baha'i is similar to Buddhism- not really a religion, but rather a philosophy or way of living to promote harmony amongst people & the nature. It's particularly cool that they focus on educating women, with the reasoning that mothers are the main teachers for their children - so it's important that they are well-informed & good role models!
Then we queue up to deposit our shoes at a funny little sunken checkroom (the window where you pass your shoes in is actually at ankle level) and tiptoe across the hot tiles to visit the temple itself. The lotus shape and incredible whiteness are pretty to look at, but oddly the whole place feels a bit cold and impersonal, especially since the access is strictly controlled - we enter in large groups, and have to sit in perfect silence inside before filing out a few minutes later. It seems at odds with the information about inclusiveness that we've read a few minutes before - surely people have their own preferred way of worship, which might include singing, standing, etc...?
Outside the temple, we are nabbed by several Indian tourists who want to take photos of or with us. This happened a bit in Jordan so it's not so much of a surprise, but it still seems pretty funny that their photo albums have these random pictures of strangers!
We rush back to the hostel to pick up our bags, stopping along the way to order a take-out curry from a small restaurant that caught our eye earlier. It's so small that we can't both enter with our backpacks on (although they've somehow managed to squeeze in a sink and a table!), so Lisa waits outside. She manages to catch the attention of a tuk-tuk, who kindly waits until Chris emerges, and we balance ourselves precariously in the vehicle. Unbelievably, the driver tries to convince a cute French girl to join us on the ride to the metro station, but his price is too high (and surely she's thinking it's a bit of a tight squeeze already!) so she refuses. In a few minutes we are at Saket station and it's a fairly easy trip to the train station while balancing our packs and our dinner!
Once inside the station, we try to find a spot to enjoy our meal, but a young boy latches on to us and keeps pestering us for money. Lisa shows him her empty pockets but he's not taking no for an answer, and even retrieves a younger boy (maybe his brother) to help harass us. We teach him the meaning of "go away" ;-) Finally he does realise that his efforts are fruitless and the boys wander off. We crouch furtively in a corner with our packs tucked safely behind us, and wolf down our curry (which is pretty delicious!). It's so big that we can't finish it, and we look around for the boys to no avail - so eventually we leave it next to a old fellow who's sleeping nearby. He's so thin that we hope everyone takes pity & leaves it there for him to consume when he wakes up.
We head for the platform, as the information board indicates that our train is actually 10 minutes early (soon!), but soon discover that this is a complete fabrication. After waiting over an hour there is still no train, and of course no information - the train has vanished from the board as if it already departed! Luckily it does eventually arrive, and we marvel at the lowest class carriages which are packed to the rafters; people are literally throwing themselves onboard, and clinging to the outside of the carriage. We are very grateful for our relatively spacious sleeper carriage, and Lisa is particularly glad to see that she has the 3rd tier (top) bunk, meaning that she can hang over the end without kicking passers-by! We spend some time watching the various tea, food and amusement vendors who work their way through the aisles, but it's late so we soon jump into bed.
The night passes quite peacefully and we all get up around the same time, to enjoy a cup of hot chai from the strolling vendor. Then we sit awkwardly with our compartment-mates (all Indian) on the lowest bunk while the sights of India slowly pass by through the window. The train makes a long stop somewhere for no obvious reason, and eventually (now that we are 3 hours delayed) people start to get a bit more chatty - the fellow across from us borrows our cards to show us some tricks, and a young lad (completely unrelated) joins him with his own repertoire; and one of the younger members of our compartment, Adil, turns out to speak English quite well so we have a good chat. He gives us an interesting insight on the problems we had with buying train tickets. He points out that Indian people don't read (and it's true, we had really noticed this on the Delhi metro - everyone is just sitting there doing nothing at all!) so in order to find out anything they just ask someone else. This means that misinformation is spread very easily - so he reckons that many of the people who told us about the various ticket offices actually believed that they were the only/best option. This makes us feel a little less angry...
Finally, we arrive at Gorakhpur station, about 4 hours late! We had discussed sharing a taxi to the Nepali border with our card-trick neighbour, but we can't spot him in the crowd. Instead, we team up with a traveller we'd spotted at the station in Delhi (Martin from Germany) - he has lots of bike panniers but no bike. It turns out to be quite a mission for him to retrieve the bike from the "large baggage" office (the only person who can help is at lunch....then they can't find his bike, etc...) so we guard his belongings while he sorts it out. He's also pretty fed up with India after travelling here for a few weeks, so we're all keen to find the bus to the border. Of course, this turns out to be a long walk, with a bit of misdirection from tourist bus offices, but eventually we do find it and the bus is miraculously "just about to leave". We are told to put the bike on the top of the bus. Initially our backpacks are OK inside the bus, at the front, but suddenly they need to be on top as well, so Chris and Martin play a fun balancing game on the bus roof with all our belongings (oh, and the bus occasionally lurching forwards while they're up there - well, he is using a rock as a brake somehow so maybe he can't really help it....?).
The bus leaves the station with just us and one other fellow aboard. It travels about 100m before stopping on the street next to a large crowd of Indian people. They proceed to stuff themselves in every nook & cranny of the bus - now we understand why our luggage is up top, and we are very grateful to have boarded first and have seats! Eventually the bus is full to bursting, and we head off down the road towards the border town of Sunauli.
Amazingly we arrive safely, although we are a little perplexed when everyone else gets off but the driver indicates that we 3 should stay on board. We're also getting a bit edgy because this border has a bad reputation at night and it's nearing sunset. It turns out that he wants to turn around before we take the time to unload our luggage - and perhaps to leave us in a better position for local people to gawk at us as we disembark ;-)
A friendly local stops us to ask whether we have the money & passport photos for our Nepali visas, which we need to get as we cross the border. He helpfully points out a shop where I can photocopy my passport (to use in place of a passport photo, since these proved impossible to find in Amman or Delhi), and another shop where we can change our rupees - Indian for Nepali! There is a lot of fraud with the Indian notes apparently, so the large ones aren't accepted in Nepal.
We're initially a bit suspicious of this unsolicited helpfulness, but he doesn't seem to have anything to gain by it and his information is in line with what we've heard from other travellers. He even points out the Indian immigration "desk", which bizarrely is a small table hidden behind the wares of the neighbouring shop and also a curtain. It's manned by one elderly fellow who isn't in uniform, and feels very odd - but he has all the necessary documents & stamps, and doesn't try to charge us anything, so we guess it's correct!
Finally we are ready, and we walk across the (very busy) border to Nepal. It's one of the oddest border crossings we've ever seen. Most of the traffic is local (Indian or Nepali) so it's totally open, and no one stops us to check if we have visas for Nepal - we have to use our own initiative to spot the small immigration office and go in to get our visas. This turns out to be an easy process - we all breathe a sigh of relief to be out of India!
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