Meeting the Godfather!

On our safe but somewhat shaken arrival in Jammu after a white knuckle ride from Kashmir to Jammu we all had about 9 hours to kill before our trains that evening. With our new travel buddies we flicked through the limited pages on Jammu in the Lonely Planet and found a street that had 2 or 3 places that we figured we would go to to while away the hours.

With everyone pretty hungry we headed straight to a cafe that was perfect for what we needed. We sat down and all of us ordered burgers (or double burger for Tom) and a coke each and we instantly started to feel slightly more human and definitely more relaxed after the evenings journey.

Chatting over a few more cokes of who was headed in what direction and what the plans were for the next stages in everyones travels we decided to head to the bar just down the road to sample some local brew!

Tom, myself and the dutch guy all opted for a Godfather beer - this was somewhat strong and when we looked at the label to see how strong it was it simply said "Alcohol will not exceed 8%". We figured a few of these would help the time pass and they certainly did. The ladies were slightly more civilised with a Kingfisher each - and whilst it didn't express the machoness of the Godfathers it was a hell of a lot nicer.

Anyway, after a few beers it was time to eat again so we headed back to the cafe for another coke and a cury and a few games of s***head. Food was great but our card playing was not appreciated as they thought we were gambling. We packed up the cards, polished off our drinks and headed back to the station to part company.

Our bags had been in the lockers for just 10 rupees each so we collected these and made our way to our respective trains.

A great bunch to have spent the day with, a good laugh and we survived the Godfathers!!

Our sleeper train down to Agra was fine and pretty comfortable. We were like an attraction with everyone wanting to stare quite a bit but everyone was friendly and polite and we slept really well, drank lots of chai and ate some really nice train curry.

All easier than we thought and we were met at Agra station by a guy holding a sign saying "Mr Sen" - a strange take on "Mr Sam" but another name I have been called on our travels to add to the list.

Taj Mahal, here we come.

Sam