Destination known and looking for jobs!: Haridwar

We get to the train station in Agra and stand in line to see if we can upgrade our other train tickets from sleeper class to a 3 A/C (high) class. The guy behind the counter, told us that we weren’t able to upgrade anything. We asked what platform our current train left from and he told us to check the reader board. So we leave the reservation area and go to the reader board which is all written in Hindi. We finally figure out where we’re leaving from as we briefly see our train number flash across the screen. We get to platform two and then see that the train will be about 30 minutes late. While sitting there waiting, I had a little mini meltdown. In two days we are scheduled to take a sleeper class over-night train. This does not sound like fun to me. This sounds like the worst experience ever! We talked about it and decided that if the hotel in Haridware wasn’t nice, we’d scratch the rest of the ‘tour’ like Chris and Amanda.

The train arrives and we climb on. We get to our assigned seats and a whole family is sitting there. In theory, every passenger on the train has assigned seating, but this is clearly not what is practiced. It’s a free-for-all seating and we got some strange looks when we insisted that these were our seats. There is some shuffling that goes on and Jeff and I able to sit next to each other with our bags next to us. As the train is leaving another guy squeezes in next to Jeff. In theory, we should have four spaces all to ourselves since Amanda and Chris aren’t with us anymore. But now crammed into that space is me, Jeff, the other guy, and a family of four sitting across from us and everyone’s things! But we make the most of it. Jeff ended up playing games on the iPhone with the little girl across from us. People are continually walking up and down the aisles selling food, gadgets, clothes, and just about anything else you could need; it’s like a bazaar on rails. The chai guys walk up and down every 10 minutes saying “Chai, chai, chai.”

The train stops in Delhi and most people get off the train. The little girl that Jeff was playing with blew him a kiss from the platform as the train pulled away. We were hungry by this point, so Jeff went to the pantry car and got two somosas (deep fried pastry triangles filled with curried potatoes & veggies). They were really good and hot, so we decided that they were pretty safe to eat. We ended up eating two more apiece. We were never brave enough to try the sweets or chai or other food stuffs as they came down the aisle.

We arrived into Haridware around 2300. We get to our hotel only to be disappointed again by our ‘tour.’ This room was an improvement from the last, but I still felt the need to sleep in my sleeping bag and no hot water. We found this little restaurant that was still open and had a wonderful meal. Haridware is the holiest Hindu city in the region and the sacred Ganges river emerges from the Himalayas here. There is no meat or eggs or alcohol to be found. So we ate a lot of paneer (soft, unfermented cheese made from milk curd that has a consistency like tofu) curries, rice, naan (tandori cooked flat bread), and dhal (lentils). All of it was very good. One of my favorites to now order is a thali plate which gets you usually a small serving of dhal, paneer, veggies, rice, and naan.

We relocated hotels to very nice hotel just around the corner the next day. We didn’t have to sleep in our sleeping bags, had 24 hot water, and room service. We had a flat screen TV that our laptop with all its movies connected into and we didn’t have to wear our shoes around the room. We stayed here for three nights(we abandoned our stupid tour) and it was wonderful! We definitely took a step up and only paid 750 rupees at night (about $16).

We wandered across the Ganges and walked down the river. People were bathing (to wash away their sins), washing clothes, and praying along its banks. There is so much going on its hard to capture in words or pictures, but this scene is what I imagined India to be like. The colors of clothes and buildings, the river, the cows standing around, the people talking, the people begging, the people selling, the people eating, the people praying. It really was extraordinary during the day, and very festive at night. There is area along the river called the Har-Ki-Pairi Ghat, which translates into The Footstep of God. Every evening as the sun sets, people gather, bells start to ring, torches are lit, and leaf baskets filled with flower petals and a candle on top are lit and put into the river to float downstream. It was really beautiful to see.

We wandered around the market area and did brave some street food. One day we got a bag of popcorn from a guy who popping it in a wok. The other thing we tried was the shortbread like cookies baked in a little oven on the push cart. These were so good we had to have more. It took us a little bit to find him the next day since his mobile but it was well worth it!

Since we stuffed our pre-purchased tour, we arranged train tickets to leave to Amritsar on day train in couple of days. Until then we’re going about 25 km north to the yoga capital of the world Rishikesh.