The Toy Train

Back at the Cecil Oberoi, we go down to the lounge for Kingfisher beers and spicy peanuts, while we update our journals and purge our cameras of the less spectacular shots of the day. After daily purging, we have a total of 324 pix for the first 17 days of the trip, virtually the half way point. We opt for room service, something we will live to regret, though the food was wonderful. We are in bed at 7:30 after walking several miles of up and down streets.

When we check out, we notice we have been charged for the room service. Because we ordered it at 5:30, we were outside the regular serving times for both lunch and dinner, both of which were included in our package. So we paid for three meals and got one meal. Very Indian. They don't like messing up the established commitment with the introduction of a little logic and reason. It's an oxymoronic twist to the service we've been raving about.

We are picked up one hour before the Toy Train is scheduled to depart, and take the 2 minute ride to the station, down very vertical, winding streets. Thank god we made it on time. We're on car C1 and the coolies (it's OK to call them coolies in India) get us on board. We're the first ones on, but the car quickly fills up. The seats are not generous (it's the Toy Train, afterall) and with the thought that the 5 hour trip might be a tad uncomfortable, Max suggests we buy 2 more seats, just so we can spread out and enjoy. The fee for the first class 5 hour trip is a whopping $4.75, so we figure we can afford the luxury.

I seek out the Ticket Inspector, who inspects my ticket and informs me that I must go up (everything's up or down in Simla) to the ticket counter and buy 2 "general tickets" to Kalka, then bring them down to him and he'll upgrade them to first class. I trudge up and back with the new tickets and present them to the Ticket Inspector, who is lodged in a tiny, windowless room, dark except for the fire on the dirt floor and empty except for him and his two cronies who are busy spitting in the vicinity of a brass receptacle. When they realize I don't have two more passengers, I only want more space, they engage in a spirited debate and then tell me to move to C3 and take seats 1-2-3-4 or 2-3-4-5 if I preferred. We move into C3. We're the only ones on the car for almost the entire trip.

Which is a good thing, if you have to use the bathroom, because the toilet is a hole in the floor with two footpads to ensure uniform positioning (see photo, above).

The ride itself is like being on a roller coaster while on drugs that reduce everything to super slo-mo. We're going 20 miles an hour through the most dramatic scenery you could imagine, with drop-offs two feet from the tracks that are easily one thousand feet deep. We pass through 103 tunnels, some only a few yards long. At times, we see two or three track switchbacks below us as we descend the 8,000 feet to Kalka. The 5 hours pass quickly.

We're on board the Kalka-Delhi train at 4:30 for the 4 hour trip. We notice the Millers from the train ride down from Simla (they were in the crowded car), discover they're from Brisbane and have a lovely chat, actually.

The ride itself was boring. For the price of $12, however, we get a 4 hour train ride, including lunch, a hot dinner and two snacks. People are talking on their cells, listening to their I-pods, etc., completely different from Simla. The guy across from me is reading a Sidney Sheldon novel, about 800 pages long. He opens it up and starts reading chapter 3, turning the page about every 10 seconds. Within the hour, he's at chapter 32, near the end of the book. Then he flips here and there, then back to chapter 22 for a minute, then all over the place. Max thinks he's using the book to learn English. I think he's a freakin' nutcase.

Finally, we're back to Delhi.Our driver and guide help us to the van through a rain, very rare at this time of year, and the parking lot is chaos, even at 9 PM. One woman slaps the hood of a taxi about to run over her and screams "Are you crazy?" Cars manouvre within inches of each other to exit the parking lot.

Seeing Delhi at night is pretty exciting. Around the train station are dozens of restaurants, eager to feed the travelers not sated with the 2 meals and 2 snacks in 4 hours of train travel. They are all called "hotels" but are completely open to the street and only have a couple of rooms on the 2nd floor. Lots of light, sound and smells. Very alive.

The bags we left at The Imperial have been transferred to The Claridges, but the check-in is interminable. We have some other issues getting all our luggage to our room and the whole impression is "It's not The Imperial". The room is small, but trying hard to be technically wonderful with a bedside console for opening the drapes, etc. The next morning the disappointment continues, with no room at the breakfast table, then a request that we share a table, then our request that we move to a real table from the booth we were seated in (the booth table was neck high). But a great breakfast, once we were seated, and of course the concierge was fawning all over us for the inconvenience we had suffered (though we hadn't complained) and told us the b'fast was on the house. We didn't have the nerve to tell him we had already paid for it.

Out on the street, we're headed on foot for the ever-elusive Khan Market. It seems that everyone in Delhi is trying to steer us away from this market, telling us we don't want to go there, for a variety of reasons. On our walk we are engaged in conversation by a man named Sharma, who walks with us and tells us the Khan market isn't open until 11 AM, and directs us to another market, where Max buys some fabulous (absolutely) paper for her collages. We walk back through Lodi Gardens and change for the afternoon trip to the Palace On Wheels (POW). We have a wonderful lunch at the hotel and retire to the lawn where we update our journals and watch Delhi pass by from a tented table. There is a security guard with a mirror on a pole, meant to search under incoming cars for bombs, etc. He merrily waves every vehicle through, never using his security device.

This reminds us of the "security" we experienced while boarding the train to Chandigarh a few days earlier at Delhi Train Station. There was a wooden "metal detector" looking thing with no lights or indeed any evidence of any metal part or electrical hook-up, that some of us walked through, while others walked around it. Next to it were 4 "security guards" seated at a table, in military uniforms, watching us all pass by.

We check out and take a taxi to the forbidden Khan Market, which turns out to be quite wonderful in its ordinariness. It's where real Indian middle class people shop and we vow to return after we get back from the POW. The taxi drivers in Delhi cover the meter with a washcloth. I ask ours to remove it, but it's back on by the time we get back from shopping and drive back to the hotel. I ask about the fare. 100 rupees. I ask him to remove the wash cloth. 53 rupees. I laugh and give him 100 rupees (about $2). Time for the POW.