the train...
after our 3 day marathon of shopping in Jodhpur, we hopped aboard a 5am train to Jaipur, a 6 hour trip through the desert. I wish I was more awake and not so rushed to make the train because the Jodhpur depot was like a scene from a movie, unfortunately no photos were taken, however I did snap a few on the train. This trip included John, Paul (me) and our dear friend Gagan, who lives in India and we were thrilled that he could join us on this journey. It was still dark as we pulled up to the station parking lot and as we jumped out of the car I knew I had to take mental snap shots of what I was seeing. People everywhere, rushing to make the train or sleeping on the ground, selling food. This was one of those moments when you automatically put your wallet in your front pocket and keep your hand over it. Gagan had purchased our tickets before hand so all we had to do was go through security, you know put your luggage on the conveyer belt and it runs through the machine — well, no one was there to monitor the machine and with every bag that whipped though a red light would flash and a disorienting blast from a small speaker would shake your soul with the distortion. Once through "non" security, we walked the deck and found our train car and climbed aboard. Because I was half asleep and didn't take any photos of the train station, I found these these two photos on Instagram taken by two other world travelers / early risers @cnberg and @simonking.
The train was packed, we were seated in a nicer section (not as nice as in the movie The Darjeeling Limited), but at least we had seats - not benches and we didn't have to sit on the roof! John and I took turns at the window for picture taking, Gagan could care less, this is his home, he slept. I'm not sure if the windows were tinted or if they were just dirty, so everything looked as though it had a sepia filter. It was pretty incredible to watch the sun rise above the desert horizon, but most of the journey looked the same, flat and sandy. We passed through small towns and farms and once in while you would see a camel pulling a cart or just wandering about, weird to see these things.
We stopped several times at various stations along the way, each one looked the same and all had venders selling food from carts. We left so early that morning, there was no time for breakfast and we were hungry! I wanted to pull a Kramer and rush out to grab a bite and try and make it back onto the train before it pulled away. If you haven't seen that episode of Seinfeld, it didn't end well for Kramer and I wasn't ready for abandonment at a random train station in the middle of the Rajasthan desert, but trust me, the smells and look of the food from my sepia tinted window sure tempted me. In the last hour, a man walked down the aisle selling water and Lays potato chips, and yes we ate them. We were starved and at the time I would have said that they were the best chips EVER!
We arrived in Jaipur at 11am and it was just a chaotic as Jodhpur but at least the sun was up. We quickly found a driver to take us to our hotel, actually he found us. As soon as we walked out of the station we were swarmed with guys trying to get our business, you could say that John and I kinda stuck out. This is a day and an experience I will never forget an hope to have again.
the next blog post will be about our two days in Jaipur...