A Passage Through India

We travel on from Khajuraho by car as far as the town of Satna, where we have our second of two encounters with the Indian Railway system. Now, maybe the Gods of Rail took our earlier comments about the blandness of the experience first time around as something of an expression of disappointment, but while we are waiting on the platform for our train to arrive, another pulls in on the opposite platform, and - hallelujah - this one is the real deal, a long, mouldering old hulk, ancient carriages with barred, predominantly glass-less windows behind which passengers sit or stand, crammed in together like sardines. Ha! I think - that's more like it, and I scamper up and down the opposite platform, snapping photos, at the same time giving thanks that our train when it arrives is going to be so very different. Twenty minutes or so after that train has gone, our train pulls in. It looks exactly the same. In vain we watch the cavalcade of rusting metal roll past, hoping against hope for...

From Orchha to Khajuraho, designated a world heritage site on the grounds of its ancient Hindu and Jain temples inlaid with amazingly intricate carvings depicting the culture and life of the period. The site is famed in the main for the so-called "erotic" carvings featuring - ahem - positions drawn from the Karma Sutra. In truth these comprise only a fairly small minority of the overall number, but what there are certainly leave very little indeed to anyone's imagination. Just as interesting albeit in a rather different way are some of the other carvings showing men and women of the time going about their everyday and sometimes not-so-everyday lives. Our guide showing us round pointed out several carvings that seemed to eerily pre-date our modern times and style of dress, particularly in some of the carvings depicting women of the period. Tattoos I guess we might have expected, but we were also shown what looked oddly like someone carrying a handbag and another wearing a...

We travel east from Agra to the town of Jhansi courtesy of Indian Railways - a scheduled journey time of just under three hours. There was a time not so way back when any rail journey in India - even a relatively short one - would surely offer rich pickings for any blogger of a satirical bent. But no longer, it seems. Yes, the train from Delhi arrives late (but not that late) and by the time we get to Jhansi its even later, but still only by about thirty minutes or so. We board the train, find our seats, which are where they should be, and a couple of minutes later the train quietly pulls out, no fuss, no bother. We're travelling second class, in company with a carriage-full of passengers drawn mostly from India's broad middle class - not so poor, not so rich, just middling. The airline-style seating a bit worn but plenty comfortable, the efficient (and complimentary) food and drink service welcome - even if we didn't try the food -  and the train speedy(ish), zipping alon...

Our journey out of Jaipur to Agra is an upgrade on the rather soulless trek  from Delhi to Jaipur a couple of days before. The road is a well (by any standards) maintained two-lane highway and the traffic is lighter, and not quite as manic as before. Over time a system of sorts emerges in terms of driving etiquette. You pick your lane (and slower vehicles tend to gravitate towards the fast lane, naturally) and then you stay in it, except when you want to overtake, or fancy veering across lanes for any other reason. When you do want to overtake, you approach the vehicle blocking your path, getting as close as physically possible, before squeezing into the first  available gap on either side big enough to accommodate your vehicle. As you pass, you apply hand to horn (signs painted on the back of trucks exhort you to do this at very opportunity), easing through the gap before resuming the road position of your choice. As stated before, the use of indicators during this process i...

Arriving into Jaipur after our unlovely drive from (let's be honest). somewhat unlovely Delhi we have basically an afternoon and evening free to explore before our full day guided tour the next day filling the rest of our stay. So we do what seems obvious - have a beer and a snack (fresh-cooked vegetable pakora, delicious) and then head to where the action is - take the metro into town, or rather, to the edge of it - the line is still under construction, and stops just short of the walls of the old city. Perhaps for this reason it is still relatively lightly used, but on the evidence of our one, very brief ride,  clean, efficient and mainly due to its light usage an oasis of tranquility in what again proves to be a fairly lively city. We enter through the nearest gate, past the throng of people and traffic, goats and cattle wandering the streets, munching on a running buffet of discarded garbage, into the interior of what has become known as the "Pink City", not for any ...

...or for the conventionally respirated, we'd been led to believe. Delhi, most polluted city in the world, China-you-ain't seen-nothing territory, if you go to Delhi, don't go out, if you do go out, try not to breathe, and so on. Well, let's start with a positive. Arriving on the overnight flight from Heathrow into Delhi's  Indira Ghandi airport all of those warnings seem well warranted. The skies are thick with smog, reducing visibility to next to nothing, very much like our arrival into Beijing last summer. But once we've been transported from the airport to our hotel close to the downtown area of the city, things seem to improve. Its polluted, sure, but unlike with Beijing the skies are clear enough for you to be able to see the sun amidst a bit of blue. Also unlike with Beijing, no one much seems to be wearing masks - although this may be more to do with India's cheerful sense of fatalism than any confidence in the air quality. As for Delhi itself, we...