March 10, 11, 2015, Tuesday, Wednesday, from Delhi to Vadodara and Ramesh Patel

March 10: 

After a yoga class and breakfast, we had some time in our room in Varanasi to catch up on internet before flying to Delhi.  Our plane was late, so we got to our hotel after 8:30 pm and had a late dinner.  OAT put us up overnight.  The others in our group just had time to shower before going back to the airport to catch their midnight flight to the US.

Lemon Tree Premier, Airport hotel, New Delhi, India

March 11:

After a delicious breakfast at the Lemon Tree Hotel, we purchased some of the food from the buffet to take on the train and were off in a taxi to Nizamuddin Railway Station.

 Two young red coated porters put our 18 kg bags on their heads and took us right to our platform 5 near our car A3 and offered to return to put our bags onto the train at 10:30am, which they did as promised.  We are on the Rajdhani Express train, 2nd class AC, and our seats are actually berths.  They are uncomfortable until they bring pillows for our backs.  Soon after we leave, young men from Meals on Wheels take our order for lunch.  Veg or non-veg.  We get veg.  We start to get handed to us sheets and a towel, wrapped in paper.  Then the pillow.  then breadsticks.  Then a cup of tomato soup with cilantro in it.  Delicious.  Then the thali meal came with rice, paneer curry and potato and yellow lentil curry, a hot chapati and a cup of plain yoghurt.  We ate our chicken sandwich from last night and tasted the thali which was very good.  David read that recently the railroad had improved the food.

We are making note of the stations we passed to see which route we are taking.  It seems we are taking a southern route from Delhi and then turning West and going through Madhya Pardesh, and then to Gujarat.  The ride is smooth and swift.  So far we have not stopped for passengers.  The train we took from Agra to Jhansi was very rocky with sudden jerks and many stops.  The fellow passengers next to us are going all the way to South India, a 40 hour ride.  We arrive at 10:30 pm.

We got two local papers and read about the 3 Olympians who died in a helicopter crash in S. America where they were in a reality TV show called Dropped.  India's cricket team has won 5 out of 5 matches so far.  There is only one team left to play in Pool B.  Australia, in Pool A, has also won all its matches.

There is lengthy discussion about whether or not to screen the documentary India's Daughter, a movie about the December, 20122 gang rape in India.

There is also a page about the solar energy airplane Solar Impulse which landed in Varanasi on its flight around the world.

We arrive in Kota at 3:45, our first stop.

At 4:30 Meals on Wheels brings a tray of goodies for tea.  Soan Cake in a cup is there, this melt in your mouth, cotton candy like textured, nutty flavored sweet.  Chandrabala made some when we were there in September.  The ride is still smooth, but I am surprised that even so far from the big cities, the visibility is poor due to smog/dust.

At 7:45 the Meals on Wheels boys brought hot soup and then another thali of vegetarian food.  We ate that rather than the food we brought because it was hot and good.  The people across from us were not satisfied, however.

Soon it was time to pick up and get ready to leave.  The two serving boys demanded more money.  It was embarrassing.  We had already paid about 1,000 rupees as a tip.

In India foreigners are charged about 10 times what locals are charged, standardly.  

Ramesh, his wife Versha, his son Viral, Viral's wife Darshan, and their young son, Rashul who is 5 years old.  Ramesh was so excited.  Everyone was excited.  They each touched our feet.  Viral hired a porter to carry our bags.  He argued with the guy to get the price to 50 rupees.  I think we paid 500 rupees to each porter, and another 500 for the porter who came back to help us.  Now it seems we will get charged the "kamaaina" rate.

Viral drove all of us in his nice 7 passenger car to the BAPS Ardalta temple guest house.

They brought us fruit, towels and bottles of water.  The room is simply furnished, but there is AC!  Two sheeted beds, small pillow and a cotton throw.  The shower is a tank which you turn on to get hot water, a faucet and a bucket.  I slept surprisingly well in spite of the hard bed and street noise.  Other hotels have had hard beds and I have been uncomfortable but this was just fine.  I guess we stay here another night.  I did wake up with mosquito bites, however.  We thought the mosquito diffuser that was plugged in was an air freshener. They also said we will be going to the lion sanctuary we were told about, which is in Gujarat, and their special temple, Shree Jalaram.  It rained overnight.