Delhi – Agra – Dharamsala

Bleary eyed and fuzzy brained, the 5 of us (Tara opted out of the trip) took a cab to the New Delhi RR Station to make our 3-hour train ride to Agra. Having heard horror stories of the Indian railway system, I was nervous, but found myself pleasantly surprised at the easiness of hopping a train! Maybe it was just because we were up so early…
We got into our AC Chair Cars, which were really nice! These cars are very comparably to the Amtrak trains we have in the US, and the AC was well accepted in our group (since it is unbelievably hot in that area). There was even a Western toilet with toilet paper in the back of the car, for our foreign conveniences. We were given a complimentary Indian breakfast – cleverly coined by the train as Meals on Wheels – that was actually quite tasty and held us over for the few hours on the train. All of this on a train, for roughly 8 USD.

Getting off at Agra was another story. The packed station was shuffling with foreign visitors confusedly looking up at hopeless Hindi signs, hoping for signs that would bring them to the safety of the Taj Mahal, away from the station’s lepers and loud noises. Our group of 5 grumpily pushed through over to the tourist booth in hopes to make train reservations back to Delhi later the same day, as well as a fast driver who’d show us the Taj and get us to a lunch stop before running to the train. We only had 4 hours available to tour the area before having to get back to Delhi; Tara, Amber, Maulin and I had a 9pm overnight train to Dharamsala that we couldn’t dare miss.

While in line, we met a guy named Josh who had the same kind of agenda as us for the day (he had a 9pm flight to Sweden he had to get back for in Delhi). And so he filled out our 6-some. Josh was a really fantastic 29 year-old Canadian eco-engineer who had been in India for 2 months already, and was on his last day in country before moving back to Canada with his Australian girlfriend. He had spent his time in Dharamsala, interestingly enough, and had a lot of pointers and tips for our vacation in the mountains. He was our miracle savior of the day, and he led us through the train system with a lot more ease than we could have without him. Without him, we probably wouldn’t have been able to get back to Delhi on time.

So we grabbed two government cars and drove to the Taj Mahal. Our driver was extremely helper, and told us to avoid guides and souvenir people while on the grounds, since they would swindle us out of oodles of money and it would be better for us to get the full experience of the site without anyone telling us what to look at and ushering us hastily out. We got to the grounds and walked through security to the Taj.

And now I will write an ode to the Taj Mahal. I don’t mean to sound clichÈ when I talk about World Heritage Sites, however I feel it necessary for such a monumental structure in our world. There are few places on Earth, I feel, that actually live up to such massive amounts of hype and make you feel like it is worth the trip, and I can honestly say that the Taj Mahal is one of these rarities. The real beauty of the whole place is in its simplicity. There are no gaudy decorations glued onto the sides of the walls or at the base of the structure. It is just all white marble. Granted, it is a bit gaudy in terms of burial grounds, but the simple architecture and immaculate symmetry makes the place feel pure and serene, much like a calm lake might be. The veins of the marble give the illusion that the Taj is always in subtle movement. The marble is soft to the touch. There is a certain quiet solemnity emanating from the Taj, making a relaxing buzz of someplace sacred. Indeed, though not a temple, I feel that the Taj is a sacred place. I felt an excitement that put me beside myself that was smoothed over with the serenity. Josh put it well while we were walking around; he said with a slightly freaked out tone, “It is so peaceful here!!!!” Well said.
I imagined that the Taj Mahal site would be this highly packed, busy and noisy spot with scores of tourists walking around talking pictures. Maybe it was because August is the off-season (think monsoons), or maybe because we were at the site early in the morning, but the Taj was not really that crowded, to my relief. They gave us footies to put over our shoes, but I opted for the barefoot option with the Indians, and waded the grounds on the cool marble for over an hour, soaking it all in through every pore.

We regrouped and left with two hours left before catching our train. Despite our best attempts at pleading for a local food join, our driver dropped us off at a very touristy restaurant, Indiana Grill. I hope you saw the pun in the restaurant’s name. Though disappointed with the tourist prices and lack of Indians in the place, the food was satisfying. Though I was sad that my aloo chaat was nothing yoghurty but something with a lemony zest.

When we arrived with our unreserved car tickets for the 4-hour Delhi train back, we were shoved into a sleeper car. The sleeper cars on trains are everything you’ve ever heard about for Indian transportation. There are 2-3 bunks hanging clumsily on the walls of the narrow cars. There is no AC in the cars – which was especially hard in the sweltering heat. Instead, three meager fans on the top of the cars sadly attempt to whir around warm air in the compartments, while an open window supplies the hot oxygen to breathe. Large families come onto the trains and fill all of the upper bunks and floor space with scores of suitcases and luggage (to go where, I am still unsure). The stenches of the cars are of bodily functions usually kept in the comforts of home, while the Eastern toilet broken stall door swings open during the ride. Men walk around with chai and samosas during the trip (though I’m unsure who’d eat such hot foods at these temperatures), while others walk around with buckets full of precarious vegetables, swarming with interested flies.
We walked on and found ourselves piled into our area. It felt like the longest ride back to Delhi. We simply sat on the benches and waited to get into Delhi, while looking through the barred windows and feeling the sweat slide down our backs nonstop. The heat made us quiet, and the smell outside made us even quieter.

We ended up getting slightly lost 17 km outside of Delhi for about half an hour, not really sure where we were or why we weren’t able to get into Delhi on our train. We quickly hopped onto another local sleeper train and got into Delhi with two hours to spare before our next train ride.
We finally thanked Josh for all of his help, wished each other luck, and Josh walked into the crowd, never to be heard from again. We didn’t exchange contact information or last names; he was just a travel buddy for a day. It was really quite a romantic situation, come to think about it. Wherever you are now, Josh, I only wish the best.

And Molly and Hallie parted ways with us in the hotel. They were not continuing on with us. After our 4 weeks of fieldwork together, we split in half, and Maulin and I joined up with the other two and sprinted to Old Delhi RR Station (quite different than the New Delhi RR Station) to find our 11-hour overnight train.
We met up at the station with another Wagnerite who was traveling with us, Hanan.
While running to our train, one of my tennis shoes apparently fell out of my bag, and a very nice Kashmiri guy ran over to me to give it back to me. The situation was a little bit reminiscent of Cinderella, though I am well aware that a tennis shoe is far less attractive than a ballroom shoe. He was very sweet, and was interested in why I was in India, where I was going, and where I was from.
We got onto our train to find we had found the wrong car, and were actually placed on the opposite side of the train in another tier car. Frantically (and with 10 minutes before leaving) we jogged over to make our chairs in time. We were in AC 3rd Tier Sleeper Cars. There was a lot of confusion about who really were the holders of our chairs, and after finding a conductor; we ended up pushing out a bunch of people for our chairs. Ironically, the man who found my tennis shoe was the man I had to push out of my chair.
Though an upgrade from the sleeper cars back to Delhi from Agra, these cars were very similar… only this time we were actually intending on sleeping in the bunks. Luckily, the AC was working in the car, so that made the trip a lot easier. However, these cars have no privacy (no curtains, no nothing), so anything your neighbors want to do or say you get full view. This was unfortunate for Amber and I, who were separated from the other 3 (our group was book-ending the entire car). One of the confusions about who had our chairs was because we had a family of 9 sitting in our area of 6 bunk beds. They had 5 little children and an old grandmother packed away in the area, and had no intention on leaving the space. Amber and I got our own side bunks, but the family managed to have the 9 of them in 6 bunks. I still don’t understand how they managed.
The toilets on the trains were literally holes in the train cars. You could look down and see the tracks speed by as you did you business. They put signs all over the toilets asking riders to avoid using them while stopped at a station, which I definitely understand now. It came to my realization that for at least 10 hours of my life I was, by using the toilets on the train, consenting to open defecation in India, despite my entire project’s goal of eliminating it.
The family began to worry me when, at 10pm at night, they started feeding the little children sugared biscuits, and followed the snacks with a full-fledged Indian dinner they packed. I was intending on sleeping for the night, but it was beginning to look dismal with fully fed children by my bed. Also, apparently the family had other members in other cars, so there was a constant opening and slamming of the car door near our doors with people coming in to talk with them.
Luckily, everyone in the car fell asleep, and I slept peacefully on the bottom of the bunks. We slept all night, as the train hobbled and swayed from one train station to the next, on our way up north. We woke up at 7am, just in time to grab all of our bags and get off of the train at Pathankot to make our switch to the bus for Dharamsala.