Frankly, not a great day today. Our train out of Varanasi was 3 hours late leaving the station, and lost another 3.5 hours along the way, which meant that our scheduled 6am arrival turned into 1:30pm. This would've been less bad if Mu hadn't also gotten sick again along the way -- he has a fever and tummy issues, ugh. He's currently in our hotel room (which proudly informed us that there's "free hot water by bucket"), resting, having started the antibiotic that his doctor gave him just in case for such a purpose.
I'm also taking it easy today. I don't want to go see Taj Mahal without Mu (though if he's not feeling up to walking around tomorrow, I will), so I've relaxed and walked around a bit and talked with other tourists. I met two women who'd been doing a meditation retreat, and we went to the "Taj Nature Walk," which turned out to be a vast area with semi-built trails and gorgeous views of the Taj. I got some photos, though they're all in bad lighting and fog, so we'll see how they actually turn out.
I'm not sure I like Agra. The Taj looks amazing, of course, and I'm sure that I'll love it once we're inside. However, the downside of having this huge tourist attraction here (and staying right next to it) is that the touts here are worse than anywhere we've been yet! They're super persistent -- I've had to say "no" about 4-5 times per person. Ugh. A pair of British women I was talking to think it's because there are fewer tourists here than normal, so they're all desperate. At least there are no cars allowed near the Taj, so there is very little honking. Also, our hotel has a lovely little garden, so it feels rather like a retreat.
Now, I'm going to check on Mu and go in search of dinner. Hopefully, he'll feel better by tomorrow and we can see the Taj!
Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Holy cow!
This will be another no-picture post, because the internet continues to be unpredictable in its availability. Ah, well.
Today, we arrived in Varanasi! This was, however, less simple than that sentence makes it seem. We had another harrowing drive out of Darjeeling to the train station 3 hours away (it was worse on the way down, for some reason), and settled in for what we thought would be the next 2 hours. Which became 3. Which became 4. The train eventually did arrive, and then we realized that the labeling of the cars was weird and we weren't really sure which one we were in. Eventually, we figured that part out, got in, and discovered people in our berths. Sigh. Because we looked foreign and, presumably, helpless, the conductor (or someone else official, I'm not sure) took pity on us and had an argument on our behalf with the family in our berths. About 10 minutes later, half of them vacated, while the others remained (in their actual seats, to be sure) and glared at us for a while.
This was the first (of 2 total, thankfully) trains where we didn't have AC1 tickets, because AC1 cars don't exist on these trains. It turns out that AC2 is an inordinately large step down. The layout is such that there are "rooms" on one side of the wagon, with 2 berths facing each other, as you'd expect. On the other side are two more berths, going the long way along the corridor. All of this has curtains for a modicum of privacy, but there's nothing to secure the curtains with, which means people passing by can inadvertently open them because there's not much space, and vendors selling food, water, newspapers, tea, and randomness of all sorts can just step in. I kinda wanted a paper, but really didn't want to encourage this nonsense.
So anyways, we sat at the station for another 30 minutes or so (not sure why, but it was very annoying), bought dinner (the bread left much to be desired, but the curry and potatoes were pretty tasty), and finally the train started moving. At this point, a different person tried to convince us to buy dinner again, and while we tried to alternately just say "no" and explain to him that we'd already eaten, the Indian family, taking pity on us, jumped in to explain and make him go away. After then, they thawed towards us and chatted, and helped us figure out which one our station was the following morning.
Our train ended up arriving over 4 hours late (I feel bad for our hotel driver, who waited for us -- we couldn't call him because our phone wouldn't get service on the train!), and in to Varanasi we went. It's...crazy, but weirdly charming. There were cows everywhere! This is what I'd been expecting, but so far, hadn't actually seen -- Kolkata is too crowded and industrial, and Darjeeling too small and high up. But Varanasi sure has those cows! They meander or lay or stand obstinately while small children attempt to get them out of the middle of the road. It's pretty great. We also saw goats and pigs and lots of dogs, but the cows outnumber them all. The streets are very crowded, but there's much less vehicular traffic. There are bikes and some motorcycles and some rickshaws, but mostly, just a ton of people walking every which way. This kind of crowd is somehow easier to deal with than the crazy amount of cars in Kolkata, at least for me.
Our hotel is right on the Ganges River, and the noise around it, to me, sounds like a beach party. There are birds, yelling children, boats, a murmur of hundreds of people talking. It's not exactly soothing, but after a while, it kind of leaves one's notice. The weather is lovely, too -- warm but not sweltering, with a nice breeze from the river. We napped, and then Mu decided to internet, and I decided to go for a walk along the river to see some of the ghats. Ghats are steps leading down to the river, and some are huge. The one nearest the hotel is pretty quiet, but slightly further south are more popular ghats, with huge crowds. I sat for a bit on the steps, one of maybe several hundred people (with more floating in) and listened to music and took in the atmosphere. There were tons of tourists, but also lots and lots of devout Hindis come to worship at the Ganges. They were dressed in robes of all colors, and were frequently barefoot, which seems amazingly unpleasant to me. It was nice to just sit and observe the craziness. I wasn't as accosted by touts as I'd expected, either. Sure, there were inevitable people trying to get me to take a boat ride, but with a few exceptions, they weren't really persistent. There was also a nice tea stall where I had a glass of hot chai that cost me pennies, and lots of shops, none of which I went into. I meandered a bit down some small alleys, but the sun was starting to set, and the lighting here isn't very good, so I decided to save the alleys for tomorrow.
Now, we're relaxing some more, preparing for the New Year's celebration at our hotel, which we're told will include dinner, beer (this was highlighted many times as it is something of an oddity here), and a "cultural presentation." We'll see what that actually means, but it's not like we have any other plans.
Even though I said this before, have a happy and safe New Year's, everyone! May 2012 bring you lots of happiness and joy!
Today, we arrived in Varanasi! This was, however, less simple than that sentence makes it seem. We had another harrowing drive out of Darjeeling to the train station 3 hours away (it was worse on the way down, for some reason), and settled in for what we thought would be the next 2 hours. Which became 3. Which became 4. The train eventually did arrive, and then we realized that the labeling of the cars was weird and we weren't really sure which one we were in. Eventually, we figured that part out, got in, and discovered people in our berths. Sigh. Because we looked foreign and, presumably, helpless, the conductor (or someone else official, I'm not sure) took pity on us and had an argument on our behalf with the family in our berths. About 10 minutes later, half of them vacated, while the others remained (in their actual seats, to be sure) and glared at us for a while.
This was the first (of 2 total, thankfully) trains where we didn't have AC1 tickets, because AC1 cars don't exist on these trains. It turns out that AC2 is an inordinately large step down. The layout is such that there are "rooms" on one side of the wagon, with 2 berths facing each other, as you'd expect. On the other side are two more berths, going the long way along the corridor. All of this has curtains for a modicum of privacy, but there's nothing to secure the curtains with, which means people passing by can inadvertently open them because there's not much space, and vendors selling food, water, newspapers, tea, and randomness of all sorts can just step in. I kinda wanted a paper, but really didn't want to encourage this nonsense.
So anyways, we sat at the station for another 30 minutes or so (not sure why, but it was very annoying), bought dinner (the bread left much to be desired, but the curry and potatoes were pretty tasty), and finally the train started moving. At this point, a different person tried to convince us to buy dinner again, and while we tried to alternately just say "no" and explain to him that we'd already eaten, the Indian family, taking pity on us, jumped in to explain and make him go away. After then, they thawed towards us and chatted, and helped us figure out which one our station was the following morning.
Our train ended up arriving over 4 hours late (I feel bad for our hotel driver, who waited for us -- we couldn't call him because our phone wouldn't get service on the train!), and in to Varanasi we went. It's...crazy, but weirdly charming. There were cows everywhere! This is what I'd been expecting, but so far, hadn't actually seen -- Kolkata is too crowded and industrial, and Darjeeling too small and high up. But Varanasi sure has those cows! They meander or lay or stand obstinately while small children attempt to get them out of the middle of the road. It's pretty great. We also saw goats and pigs and lots of dogs, but the cows outnumber them all. The streets are very crowded, but there's much less vehicular traffic. There are bikes and some motorcycles and some rickshaws, but mostly, just a ton of people walking every which way. This kind of crowd is somehow easier to deal with than the crazy amount of cars in Kolkata, at least for me.
Our hotel is right on the Ganges River, and the noise around it, to me, sounds like a beach party. There are birds, yelling children, boats, a murmur of hundreds of people talking. It's not exactly soothing, but after a while, it kind of leaves one's notice. The weather is lovely, too -- warm but not sweltering, with a nice breeze from the river. We napped, and then Mu decided to internet, and I decided to go for a walk along the river to see some of the ghats. Ghats are steps leading down to the river, and some are huge. The one nearest the hotel is pretty quiet, but slightly further south are more popular ghats, with huge crowds. I sat for a bit on the steps, one of maybe several hundred people (with more floating in) and listened to music and took in the atmosphere. There were tons of tourists, but also lots and lots of devout Hindis come to worship at the Ganges. They were dressed in robes of all colors, and were frequently barefoot, which seems amazingly unpleasant to me. It was nice to just sit and observe the craziness. I wasn't as accosted by touts as I'd expected, either. Sure, there were inevitable people trying to get me to take a boat ride, but with a few exceptions, they weren't really persistent. There was also a nice tea stall where I had a glass of hot chai that cost me pennies, and lots of shops, none of which I went into. I meandered a bit down some small alleys, but the sun was starting to set, and the lighting here isn't very good, so I decided to save the alleys for tomorrow.
Now, we're relaxing some more, preparing for the New Year's celebration at our hotel, which we're told will include dinner, beer (this was highlighted many times as it is something of an oddity here), and a "cultural presentation." We'll see what that actually means, but it's not like we have any other plans.
Even though I said this before, have a happy and safe New Year's, everyone! May 2012 bring you lots of happiness and joy!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Why is it called the cool season, anyway?
If you are ever thinking of traveling to Thailand, you should know that the term "cool season" is highly misleading. Sure, it's probably cooler than at other times (according to Lonely Planet, May is deadly), but it's 9pm right now in Bangkok, and it's 84F with 54% humidity. This is not my definition of cool.
So, anyways, we're back in Bangkok, this time for 3.5 days. Our last morning in Chiang Mai was nice, we wandered about, saw another wat (our "local" wat, which was on the corner of the little street we were on), went to a market in Chinatown, and eventually got on another overnight train to Bangkok. This one
had kind of weird arrangements -- it was an old Japanese sleeper, and each room was a single, so we had adjoining rooms with a door between them. The room itself was pretty nice, wide bed, lots of lights, and even a fold-out sink and a tiny (non-working) TV and VCR thing. There was even a non-squat toilet in the car! Oh, the things I get excited about...but anyways, we had another long train ride (made longer than scheduled for some reason, by the fact that it took about 2 hours to go the last 50 miles. It's a mystery.), slept (though less well because the engineer in control of the train seemed to delight in sudden stops and starts), and finally arrived in Bangkok, at which point we hiked about 3.5 miles, with our giant packs, to our guesthouse. I'm not sure whose bright idea that was, but here we are. On the way, we had an authentic tourist experience via a man who told us he was a teacher and then proceeded to attempt to convince us to hire a tuk-tuk to go to a temple and a tailor, but we escaped unscathed. :)
We were determined to see the Grand Palace today, so after some time s
pent collapsed at the guest house, we set out again (thankfully, minus huge backpacks) to find food and see more wats and the palace. Food was a bit of an adventure, as the guy served us noodles with pork after cheerfully agreeing that they were vegetarian, but we got it straightened out eventually. We have also been learning that if you don't like spicy food, Thailand is not the best place for you. Our mouths were burning after that meal! We were, however, satiated, and moved on to our first sight, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace.
It's hard to convey how grand both of those places were. We have a ton of pictures (though only one of the Emerald Buddha itself, since photos weren't allowed inside the room, and we had to take some through the door), a few of which I've posted here, but they don't quite do the place justice. Everything was gold-painted or plated, covered with glit
tery things, with ornate statues and lots of other decorations. The grounds themselves were probably about 54 acres, densely packed with buildings and statues. The throne room was amazing, with more ornate glittery things everywhere. The temple that contained the Emerald Buddha was really incredible, as well. The walls were covered with murals of the Buddha's life, and the Emerald Buddha was at th
e front, surrounded by gold Buddhas and other decorations. Apparently, it has seasonal costumes and was at the time wearing its winter costume. This may be sacrilegious to say, but it kinda resembled Yoda. :) The grounds also contained a palace and several museums, all pretty awesome.
After this, we took the ferry across the river to see Wat Arun, the temple of Dawn. It's notable in that it has a very tall stupa (a mound-like structure containing relics, by definition, though this one was much taller than a mound!), and we climbed up, and then down again, the steepest stairs I've ever encountered! The 3 pictures below show the stupa itself, and the views up and down the stairs. Craziness!
It was getting late, so we took the ferry back and decided to go to one more Wat, Wat Po. This one is famous for having a huge reclining Buddha, and I wanted to see it. What I didn't realize was quite how huge it is! It took up an entire large building and was 160 feet long! It also had very large feet. :)
By this point, we'd been out and about for 5 hours or so, so we meandered back, stopping to eat yet more spicy food (for me) and a lemongrass omelet (for Mu). We also went into what looked like a dessert place, pointed at random pictures, and ended up with fried toast with condensed milk (me) and strawberry jam (Mu). Tasty, if random. We finally got back to our room at around 8pm and have been chilling ever since.
Tomorrow, we get to have more animal encounters! We're going on a tour of the Tiger Temple, where there are actual tigers! We're also going on an elephant ride, to add to the animal factor. Somewhere in there is a trip to the floating market and the bridge over the river Kwai (which I admit I haven't seen), so it'll be a packed day.
So, anyways, we're back in Bangkok, this time for 3.5 days. Our last morning in Chiang Mai was nice, we wandered about, saw another wat (our "local" wat, which was on the corner of the little street we were on), went to a market in Chinatown, and eventually got on another overnight train to Bangkok. This one
had kind of weird arrangements -- it was an old Japanese sleeper, and each room was a single, so we had adjoining rooms with a door between them. The room itself was pretty nice, wide bed, lots of lights, and even a fold-out sink and a tiny (non-working) TV and VCR thing. There was even a non-squat toilet in the car! Oh, the things I get excited about...but anyways, we had another long train ride (made longer than scheduled for some reason, by the fact that it took about 2 hours to go the last 50 miles. It's a mystery.), slept (though less well because the engineer in control of the train seemed to delight in sudden stops and starts), and finally arrived in Bangkok, at which point we hiked about 3.5 miles, with our giant packs, to our guesthouse. I'm not sure whose bright idea that was, but here we are. On the way, we had an authentic tourist experience via a man who told us he was a teacher and then proceeded to attempt to convince us to hire a tuk-tuk to go to a temple and a tailor, but we escaped unscathed. :)We were determined to see the Grand Palace today, so after some time s
pent collapsed at the guest house, we set out again (thankfully, minus huge backpacks) to find food and see more wats and the palace. Food was a bit of an adventure, as the guy served us noodles with pork after cheerfully agreeing that they were vegetarian, but we got it straightened out eventually. We have also been learning that if you don't like spicy food, Thailand is not the best place for you. Our mouths were burning after that meal! We were, however, satiated, and moved on to our first sight, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace.
It's hard to convey how grand both of those places were. We have a ton of pictures (though only one of the Emerald Buddha itself, since photos weren't allowed inside the room, and we had to take some through the door), a few of which I've posted here, but they don't quite do the place justice. Everything was gold-painted or plated, covered with glit
tery things, with ornate statues and lots of other decorations. The grounds themselves were probably about 54 acres, densely packed with buildings and statues. The throne room was amazing, with more ornate glittery things everywhere. The temple that contained the Emerald Buddha was really incredible, as well. The walls were covered with murals of the Buddha's life, and the Emerald Buddha was at th
e front, surrounded by gold Buddhas and other decorations. Apparently, it has seasonal costumes and was at the time wearing its winter costume. This may be sacrilegious to say, but it kinda resembled Yoda. :) The grounds also contained a palace and several museums, all pretty awesome.After this, we took the ferry across the river to see Wat Arun, the temple of Dawn. It's notable in that it has a very tall stupa (a mound-like structure containing relics, by definition, though this one was much taller than a mound!), and we climbed up, and then down again, the steepest stairs I've ever encountered! The 3 pictures below show the stupa itself, and the views up and down the stairs. Craziness!
It was getting late, so we took the ferry back and decided to go to one more Wat, Wat Po. This one is famous for having a huge reclining Buddha, and I wanted to see it. What I didn't realize was quite how huge it is! It took up an entire large building and was 160 feet long! It also had very large feet. :)
By this point, we'd been out and about for 5 hours or so, so we meandered back, stopping to eat yet more spicy food (for me) and a lemongrass omelet (for Mu). We also went into what looked like a dessert place, pointed at random pictures, and ended up with fried toast with condensed milk (me) and strawberry jam (Mu). Tasty, if random. We finally got back to our room at around 8pm and have been chilling ever since.
Tomorrow, we get to have more animal encounters! We're going on a tour of the Tiger Temple, where there are actual tigers! We're also going on an elephant ride, to add to the animal factor. Somewhere in there is a trip to the floating market and the bridge over the river Kwai (which I admit I haven't seen), so it'll be a packed day.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
We're here!
Before I say anything else, let me tell you: you're lucky that my assumption that a drop down menu might be a language preference was correct -- when I logged into blogger, the whole page was in Thai, and if I hadn't figured the drop-down thing out, there wouldn't be a post today. :)
So, by the way, we're in Thailand! It's been a crazy few days, so let me summarize best I can, with a few pictures. We took a ton, and many more will be up post-trip, but I'm gonna share just a couple for now. It's gonna be a long post as it is.
So, on Thursday afternoon, we arrived in LA and hung out at Cindy and Eric's for a while before our flight. We were already getting wildly
excited, it was hard to wait the necessary time before being able to go!
I passed the time by playing on Cin's iPad. We both look slightly crazed, don't we? Mu and I (on the right) were also looking a little giddy.
Eventually, we did the dinner thing and the going to the airport thing and even attempted, unsuccessfully, to get bumped up to business class, and then finally got on our crazily long flight. I did spend a lot of time pre-flight being anxious, but actually on
ce we got going, it wasn't so bad. They fed us pretty well, too. Cin told us to take pictures of the food, which we didn't really do most of the time (too obnoxious, frankly), but it was the best airline food I've had in a long time, with Air New Zealand being the only real competition. They even gave us cup noodle as a snack in the middle of the flight!
We had a short layover in Hong Kong, but since our outbound flight was delayed (due to, apparently, the "congestion at the airport around Christmas," according to the captain), we were able to wander about for a bit
and have breakfast. I was so excited by this! There were dumplings! And custard tarts! And noodles for breakfast! And milk tea! It took some effort to find food for Mu that was both vegetarian and included protein, but eventually he ended up with a weird combo of noodles, scrambled eggs, and a bun. We also got fed again on our flight. As I said to Mu after that, the one thing we don't appear to be in danger of on this trip is going hungry. Everyone seems eager to feed us as much as possible. :) I have to admit, this makes me pretty happy -- one of my favorite things about travel is getting to eat yummy things!
Eventually, after the delayed flight, a long line at passport control, and a fairly quick sky rail line into town, we arrived in downtown Bangkok (where we would stay for 4 hours before getting on a train to Chiang Mai). First impressions: traffic is nuts and on the wrong side of the road, there's a ton of pollution, street vendors are everywhere (I was a little sad not to be hungry!), and Thai people are super friendly. When we stepped off the train, 3 people approached us within the span of about 6 minutes, offering directions on getting down from the rail station (needed because the signage was unclear) and guidance on how to get to the main train station downtown (not needed because we had a map and a plan, but we didn't have the heart to tell the very excited man this, so we allowed him to explain it to us). We were, by this point, exhausted and (at least on my part) feeling a little delirious. We wandered around, I caffeinated in a vain attempt to feel less dead, and
eventually, we made it to the train station (with the help of a few more friendly people with badges labeled "Tourist Information Authority"). We'd walked about 2.5 miles by then, with our huge backpacks (you can see me with mine on the left), so at that point, we pretty much collapsed until we had to actually board the train, and then we boarded, found our room, and collapsed again, very relieved not to have to put on our backpacks any time soon!
I'm glad to say that the romantic picture I had in my head of train travel (stemming, amusingly, from when my family went to Moscow and back when I was 8, and then again to Moscow to leave the country a few months later) has actually been, so far, borne out. Our room was reasonable spacious and even had a little sink, the food was pretty amazing and not too pricey (dinner and breakfast for both of us for 500 Thai Baht, or about $17), and the berths were fairly wide and surprisingly comfortable. We tried to stay up as late as possible, but crashed ou
t around 9pm and both slept like logs, lulled by the motion of the train. It was really quite lovely, though I can't say the same about the squat toilets. At least there was toilet paper and soap? Heh. Looking out the window in the morning was pretty amazing. We were basically riding through jungle, with occasional stations (and, inevitably, shrines) popping up in the woods. Very incongruous, that.
We finally got into Chiang Mai around 8:30am, were delivered to our guest house by weird taxi (a truck with benches in the bed, this is apparently typical here), and went wandering about the old city, looking at Wats. A Wat is a Buddhist temple and monastery, and there are a ton in town. Lots of monks everywhere, and giant gold Buddhas (I said to Mu at one point, "Look, there's a huge Buddha!"
to which he responded, "I think we'll be saying that a lot on this trip."). We sat and listened to monks chanting in one, and wandered about a bunch, and took tons of pictures, one of which you can see on the left. Eventually, we got tired (and overheated, it's mid-80s and humid here!) and found our way to a delicious veggie restaurant (Thanks for the rec, Nikki!), where we feasted before heading back to our guest house to rest.
And that brings you up to speed! Tonight, we'll go to the Sunday walking market to meander and possibly shop a bit and see performances, and tomorrow, we're not sure yet. We may go to the Flower Festival, which sounds pretty but is a little far, or a forest with another Wat, which is also a little far, but all the pictures of it look very grand. It's really nice not to have to make up our minds ahead of time! A very nice start to our vacation. :)
So, by the way, we're in Thailand! It's been a crazy few days, so let me summarize best I can, with a few pictures. We took a ton, and many more will be up post-trip, but I'm gonna share just a couple for now. It's gonna be a long post as it is.
So, on Thursday afternoon, we arrived in LA and hung out at Cindy and Eric's for a while before our flight. We were already getting wildly
excited, it was hard to wait the necessary time before being able to go!I passed the time by playing on Cin's iPad. We both look slightly crazed, don't we? Mu and I (on the right) were also looking a little giddy.
Eventually, we did the dinner thing and the going to the airport thing and even attempted, unsuccessfully, to get bumped up to business class, and then finally got on our crazily long flight. I did spend a lot of time pre-flight being anxious, but actually on
ce we got going, it wasn't so bad. They fed us pretty well, too. Cin told us to take pictures of the food, which we didn't really do most of the time (too obnoxious, frankly), but it was the best airline food I've had in a long time, with Air New Zealand being the only real competition. They even gave us cup noodle as a snack in the middle of the flight!We had a short layover in Hong Kong, but since our outbound flight was delayed (due to, apparently, the "congestion at the airport around Christmas," according to the captain), we were able to wander about for a bit
and have breakfast. I was so excited by this! There were dumplings! And custard tarts! And noodles for breakfast! And milk tea! It took some effort to find food for Mu that was both vegetarian and included protein, but eventually he ended up with a weird combo of noodles, scrambled eggs, and a bun. We also got fed again on our flight. As I said to Mu after that, the one thing we don't appear to be in danger of on this trip is going hungry. Everyone seems eager to feed us as much as possible. :) I have to admit, this makes me pretty happy -- one of my favorite things about travel is getting to eat yummy things!Eventually, after the delayed flight, a long line at passport control, and a fairly quick sky rail line into town, we arrived in downtown Bangkok (where we would stay for 4 hours before getting on a train to Chiang Mai). First impressions: traffic is nuts and on the wrong side of the road, there's a ton of pollution, street vendors are everywhere (I was a little sad not to be hungry!), and Thai people are super friendly. When we stepped off the train, 3 people approached us within the span of about 6 minutes, offering directions on getting down from the rail station (needed because the signage was unclear) and guidance on how to get to the main train station downtown (not needed because we had a map and a plan, but we didn't have the heart to tell the very excited man this, so we allowed him to explain it to us). We were, by this point, exhausted and (at least on my part) feeling a little delirious. We wandered around, I caffeinated in a vain attempt to feel less dead, and
eventually, we made it to the train station (with the help of a few more friendly people with badges labeled "Tourist Information Authority"). We'd walked about 2.5 miles by then, with our huge backpacks (you can see me with mine on the left), so at that point, we pretty much collapsed until we had to actually board the train, and then we boarded, found our room, and collapsed again, very relieved not to have to put on our backpacks any time soon!I'm glad to say that the romantic picture I had in my head of train travel (stemming, amusingly, from when my family went to Moscow and back when I was 8, and then again to Moscow to leave the country a few months later) has actually been, so far, borne out. Our room was reasonable spacious and even had a little sink, the food was pretty amazing and not too pricey (dinner and breakfast for both of us for 500 Thai Baht, or about $17), and the berths were fairly wide and surprisingly comfortable. We tried to stay up as late as possible, but crashed ou
t around 9pm and both slept like logs, lulled by the motion of the train. It was really quite lovely, though I can't say the same about the squat toilets. At least there was toilet paper and soap? Heh. Looking out the window in the morning was pretty amazing. We were basically riding through jungle, with occasional stations (and, inevitably, shrines) popping up in the woods. Very incongruous, that.We finally got into Chiang Mai around 8:30am, were delivered to our guest house by weird taxi (a truck with benches in the bed, this is apparently typical here), and went wandering about the old city, looking at Wats. A Wat is a Buddhist temple and monastery, and there are a ton in town. Lots of monks everywhere, and giant gold Buddhas (I said to Mu at one point, "Look, there's a huge Buddha!"
to which he responded, "I think we'll be saying that a lot on this trip."). We sat and listened to monks chanting in one, and wandered about a bunch, and took tons of pictures, one of which you can see on the left. Eventually, we got tired (and overheated, it's mid-80s and humid here!) and found our way to a delicious veggie restaurant (Thanks for the rec, Nikki!), where we feasted before heading back to our guest house to rest.And that brings you up to speed! Tonight, we'll go to the Sunday walking market to meander and possibly shop a bit and see performances, and tomorrow, we're not sure yet. We may go to the Flower Festival, which sounds pretty but is a little far, or a forest with another Wat, which is also a little far, but all the pictures of it look very grand. It's really nice not to have to make up our minds ahead of time! A very nice start to our vacation. :)
Monday, December 5, 2011
Odds and Ends
We're getting closer to departure day, yay! I've gotten lots of emails from you all about postcards, yay! If anyone else wants one and hasn't let me know, you should do so soon! Lots of small things are coming together, but not much new is happening, so I thought I'd have another post of assorted trip-related tidbits.
-- I don't know if I mentioned this, but we're going on a camel trek in Jaisalmer, which is in the dessert in Northwestern-ish India (I say ish because it's not actually that far north, but all the way west. Midwestern India? Anyhow.). The camel trek involves being driven on a jeep somewhere outside the city, riding camels for a few hours out to dunes (or possibly a village? or a village in the dunes?), camping out in the dessert overnight, and then taking camels and jeep back to the city. We've heard that it's an awesome experience, despite being kinda touristy, so we're doing it! We did our research a while ago and emailed a bunch of places, asking for prices and description of their packages. Got several responses, selected one, booked...and then, a month later, suddenly got an answer from another one, which was not only absurdly delayed, but also just absurd. It started with "Greetings of the day...!!!!," included lines such as "I hope you understand what i meant?" (which is only funny, I suppose, if you imagine it said in a Godfather-like voice, as Mu and I did), asked us to "please clear the category as it will be according to the Budget" (huh?), and concluded with a very optimistic "Hope it's clear?" Well, it really wasn't, but there we are.
-- We haven't really told people our general itinerary, have we? We will be in Thailand for the first week of the trip, mostly in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, but with a few day trips. Then, on Christmas day, we fly to Kolkatta to spend the following three weeks taking trains across northern India, going east to west. We're not making it to southern India at all, just not enough time. Then, at the end, we fly back through Hong Kong, this time with a 16 hour layover! Not much, but enough for a whirlwind tour of the city.
-- I think I promised the story of Thai train bookings, but it's really not long enough to have its own post, so here it is, instead. We really thought the Thai trains would be easier, especially since we only needed two. Well. We were wrong. First, the site wouldn't let me register, just kept giving errors. Then, after we realized that Mu had registered in the past and we could use his account, it turned out that the train we wanted to book to Chiang Mai didn't have any 2-person first class cabins -- it either offered singles (which we didn't want because we don't really want to be in separate rooms!) or open-plan second class sleepers. Sigh. We ended up booking a different train, which worked slightly less well with our schedule but was close enough, and had the cabins we wanted. When booking the train from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok, the site was down for about 3 days, by which time the train we wanted was sold out. We ended up having to get a later train, which only had the above-mentioned singles. And then, of course, there were the Bangkok floods, which are still affecting transit. Our trains were actually cancelled for a while, but they seem to be going now, just with a delay for a re-route. We shall see how this works in practice. :) We aren't really time-constrained on any of these rides, so delays shouldn't affect us much.
Well, I think that's all for now. Only 10 more days to go!
-- I don't know if I mentioned this, but we're going on a camel trek in Jaisalmer, which is in the dessert in Northwestern-ish India (I say ish because it's not actually that far north, but all the way west. Midwestern India? Anyhow.). The camel trek involves being driven on a jeep somewhere outside the city, riding camels for a few hours out to dunes (or possibly a village? or a village in the dunes?), camping out in the dessert overnight, and then taking camels and jeep back to the city. We've heard that it's an awesome experience, despite being kinda touristy, so we're doing it! We did our research a while ago and emailed a bunch of places, asking for prices and description of their packages. Got several responses, selected one, booked...and then, a month later, suddenly got an answer from another one, which was not only absurdly delayed, but also just absurd. It started with "Greetings of the day...!!!!," included lines such as "I hope you understand what i meant?" (which is only funny, I suppose, if you imagine it said in a Godfather-like voice, as Mu and I did), asked us to "please clear the category as it will be according to the Budget" (huh?), and concluded with a very optimistic "Hope it's clear?" Well, it really wasn't, but there we are.
-- We haven't really told people our general itinerary, have we? We will be in Thailand for the first week of the trip, mostly in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, but with a few day trips. Then, on Christmas day, we fly to Kolkatta to spend the following three weeks taking trains across northern India, going east to west. We're not making it to southern India at all, just not enough time. Then, at the end, we fly back through Hong Kong, this time with a 16 hour layover! Not much, but enough for a whirlwind tour of the city.
-- I think I promised the story of Thai train bookings, but it's really not long enough to have its own post, so here it is, instead. We really thought the Thai trains would be easier, especially since we only needed two. Well. We were wrong. First, the site wouldn't let me register, just kept giving errors. Then, after we realized that Mu had registered in the past and we could use his account, it turned out that the train we wanted to book to Chiang Mai didn't have any 2-person first class cabins -- it either offered singles (which we didn't want because we don't really want to be in separate rooms!) or open-plan second class sleepers. Sigh. We ended up booking a different train, which worked slightly less well with our schedule but was close enough, and had the cabins we wanted. When booking the train from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok, the site was down for about 3 days, by which time the train we wanted was sold out. We ended up having to get a later train, which only had the above-mentioned singles. And then, of course, there were the Bangkok floods, which are still affecting transit. Our trains were actually cancelled for a while, but they seem to be going now, just with a delay for a re-route. We shall see how this works in practice. :) We aren't really time-constrained on any of these rides, so delays shouldn't affect us much.
Well, I think that's all for now. Only 10 more days to go!
Monday, November 28, 2011
The adventure that is the Indian rail system, part 1/?
Despite the fact that we are still in the US, our adventure has already begun. Because we want to travel around India by train (I don't do planes very happily, and Mu likes trains just fine, and besides, it's a lot cheaper), we have had the pleasure of dealing with the online booking system for Indian trains. Now, I know that I should be grateful for the fact that I can do this online at all, and believe me, I am. However, it doesn't mean that I enjoyed the process.
I should first give you an idea of the scale of this undertaking. Out of our 33 days total for this trip (which includes drive time to and from LAX), we will be sleeping on trains 9 of the nights, 7 of those in India and the other 2 in Thailand. In addition to that, we'll be taking a few daytime trains in India for the shorter hops. Since Indian trains are notoriously crowded and insane, and we want to be able to get good sleep as much as possible, all this meant that we had to book way ahead of time in order to make sure we got higher class tickets, which sell out quickly.
Indian train tickets go on sale 90 days out, so we, being organized and dorky, put reminders in our Google calendars to make sure we booked our tickets as quickly as possible. With the time difference, this was pretty convenient -- we would be booking at 7:30pm-ish, or so we thought. This did not, in fact, turn out to be the case. There were several other things that also did not turn out to be the case. :)
We had formulated our itinerary and figured out trains way ahead of time, so that we could just go online and book. The problems started there, though. The official Indian railway website does not allow booking without, get this, an Indian mobile number. Out of the rest of the booking sites, only one allowed the use of a non-Indian credit card, so by default, that's the one we ended up going with.
The very first day, we ran into issues. At 7:30pm, I went online, found my train, clicked the "check availibility" button, and was told that the system was not able to get data. Huh. I tried again. And again. And again. Nothing. Finally, I left to have dinner with a friend, and let Mu, who was in Texas, take over. An hour lateer, the system finally responded, huzzah! We had our first train ticket! Upon further googling, it turned out that the first hour of ticket sales is only accessible to agents in India, to book last-minute tickets. Why the site was unable to tell me this was unclear.
Over the next few weeks, we continued to run into random new and exciting errors on an almost daily basis, with the site giving us such informative error messages as "we're sorry, the system is grumpy" and "aargh! We couldn't find any trains!" Googling sometimes helped, but not always. Once, we found that it was impossible to book a train between the two stations we wanted. The train stopped at both stations, but one was not allowed to buy a ticket between the 2 -- instead of getting a ticket between station D and X, we had to buy tickets between D and Y, pay extra for the privilege, and get off a station early. Another time, we discovered that the direct train between 2 cities is cancelled in December and January due to fog, though we could still take trains around the foggy area. Yet another time, we couldn't book any tickets in 2012 because the external website's database hadn't caught up with the rail system's schedule. Some train numbers had randomly changed, apparently, and the systems were no longer in sync.
Finally, 3 weeks after we began, we got all our Indian rail tickets! We were so relieved, and hopeful that booking Thai trains would be easier. Hah. But that's a story for another post.
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