21st - 25th Sept. Delhi

Temperature: felt like 40 degrees, hostest we had experienced
Rip offs:1 but thousands of attempts
Refunds: 1
Hours on train: 30
Power cuts:10
Early starts: 1
Cows: loads

The train journey up to Delhi wasn't as bad as expected, but it was an early start, 5am! The seats weren't great because our beds were separated by a few in between, so we had to sit opposite 2 men the whole journey. The elder man was a really messy, noisy eater who snored and farted throughout the whole journey. His son-in-law (who seemed okay), was at the beck and call of his father-in-law who wouldn't lift a finger. This old man (who completely ignored Vik) tried to strike up a conversation with Carl on many occasions about politics, but all Carl could hear was "curry" - honestly we couldn't understand a word!

We were fed throughout the whole journey (free), which consisted of (very colonial); high tea, dinner, morning tea, breakfast, and lunch. The tea wasn't the nice tea we know and love, but the chai type, which is; sugar, milk and a touch of tea bag. Mmm, great to be waken at 6am with this lovely stuff.

The train arrived at Delhi, but not at the main New Delhi train station we were expecting, but at a tiny little suburb station, so we had to get a rickshaw over to the main station (as that is where our hotel was). This was the first of many attempts to rip us off, as he tried to charge us for our bags once we arrived (and after agreeing to the fare).

Delhi is a chaotic, dirty and smelly place, that no-one in the right mind would stay in for long periods of time, especially if you're a Westerner. Westerners are only seen as walking bags of money, and therefore, it seems, it is necessary to extract their money any way possible - something they should gain gold medals for as they are amazing at this.

We gave ourselves the simple task of buying a ticket to Shimla on the first day in Delhi. This would normally only take 10 mins to do, as we were staying so close to the train station. However, it took us until the next day to achieve this. According to our guide book the tourist ticket office (Indian have separate booths and cheaper tickets) was suppose to be on the first floor of the station. This was slightly vague as the station is huge, and very busy.

The trails and tribulations of Vik and Carls attempt to buy a train ticket to Shimla

Attempt 1: A man stopped us entering one of the ticket areas, and insisted that we couldn't go in and should follow him to where we were supposed to pay. This turned out to be a travel agent across the road (on the first floor). So, we walked straight out and back to the station where Carl had a slagging match with the guy that took us there as he wouldn't leave us alone.

Attempt 2: We tried to go in another entrance, only to be stopped and asked whether we had tickets. He wouldn't allow us in to have a look. We said we were looking for the first floor, in which he pointed to a door and said that it was closed down (funny, that's what it says in the guide that they would say). Unconvinced we barged past and pulled at the door which was locked so we walked away.

Attempt 3: Leaving the station Carl was grabbed by a guy, which Carl nearly punched, as he was trying to get us to go to another agency.

Attempt 4: We walked further down the road looking for other entrances and maybe other first floors. WE did find somewhere, where we were told we couldn't buy (as it was for Indians only). A nice guy helped us by asking us which train we wanted and provided the details we already knew. He then told us that we needed to get the tickets from the government tourist offices. He explained there were 3 offices. One in the airport, one in the centre, and the one supposedly closed down in the station. He then got us the rickshaw, at special price, to the one in the centre. When we arrived, we worked out that this was another travel agent. It was now becoming quite obvious that everybody seemed to be in on the scam to get us to pay overpriced train tickets or better still, plane ticket to excursions we had no intention of going on. We spent around 20 mins with the travel agent, as he said there were no trains for 5 days to Shimla, and therefore we should think about going on an excursion to Leh on a trekking holiday. He even showed us the 'train company booking website' that there were no trains available. After the travel agent realised that we would be pursuaded, he let us go.

Attempt 5: The rickshaw guy was still waiting for us and offered to take us to another place where we should be able to book tickets. We ended up at another government, first floor tourist agency. As they brought us in, we saw 4 Americans leaving, unknowingly to us at the time, had wanted to go to Shimla, but had ended up going on an excursion to Kashmir. Again, we tried to book tickets to Shimla, and again they said it was fully booked, also buses were fully booked for 4-5 days. This would obviously be a good opportunity for us to take a trip to Kashmir and spend a few days on the house boats before going back via Shimla, especially as nobody wants to spend any extra time in Delhi. We decided that they could get us a ticket back, but we would go and look for alternative ways of getting up to Shimla, so we bought the return tickets for 2770 rp -.

Attempt 6: On the way back to our hotel, we thought we would take another look in the station, and luckily there didn't seem to be any touts around to stop us entering the main entrance.

Attempt 7: We got up early, not really sure whether we could still book the tickets, as the trains seemed to be full, but thought to give it a go. The process was extremely quick and easy, and we bought our tickets at half the money we paid for the return ones, for the day we wanted, which was the next day.

Knowing we'd be ripped off and had our time wasted, we marched straight to the travel agency (8:30am), and demanded our money back, or our tickets. They said they hadn't bought the tickets yet, but would get them to us. We said we would wait there, or they could just give us our money back as we know they had ripped us off and wasted our time with complete b******s. They gave us our money back! How satisfying it was.

That night we, and everyone in India, watched the cricket, India vs Pakistan. Fortunately for us, they won, as this put everyone in a good mood. Delhi errupted into a firework frenzy. See pics.

With one day left we went to the Red Fort which is the place to do sight seeing. This too proved difficult because nobody wanted to take us there at the price we knew was fair. See pics of red fort in Old Delhi.

The Red fort was nice but, it seemed that all men that go around in big packs, were more interested in staring at Western women, which spoilt it a little.

We were up ealy (5am) for the train to Kalka and the toy train to Shimla.

Good riddance Delhi!