Having seen the melee at the Delhi train station the previous afternoon, I decided it would be a good idea to arrive at the station at least an hour early for my first train trip in India. There were several unknowns, like how long it would take to get through the line of people waiting to enter the station, how I would figure out which platform I was leaving from and how to identify the train car I would be riding in.
I calculated a half hour to get to the station by rickshaw taxi so I set my alarm for 7am. It wasn’t necessary as I woke an hour early paranoid that I would miss my train. You see there was no alternative to getting out of Delhi for the next several days if I didn’t make the train, and I had had enough of Delhi by this time. Let me explain.
When I responded to the manager of my hotel that I did not have a ticket for my trip to Jaipur in a couple days, he replied, “you need to get one right away because they sell out quickly”. I had just passed this off as another attempt to get me to use the in-house travel agency I had been warned about in online reviews, but I decided to head to the station anyway to see if I could get a ticket.
On my first attempt, I was stopped on the way into the station by a guy who grabbed my arm and asked if I had my ticket. I had been warned about scams at the station, but since it was my first time there and he had actually tried to physically stop me, I hesitated. That was enough for him to reel me in. He began to tell me of the daily departures and led me to the tourist offices where I could buy a ticket.
I recovered myself, having read about the tour office scams to get you to pay exaggerated prices for a ticket that might not even be real. In the office, I told them I was only interested in finding out the times not buying a ticket, when I was again warned of tickets selling out. I decided to come back later in the afternoon and make another try at the station, now that I was familiar with this ruse, finally realizing that the guy who led me to the office wasn’t even wearing a uniform.
On my second attempt, I decided to stand across the street and watch where and how the Indian people were entering the station. I had gone to the correct gate earlier that morning. My only mistake was hesitating, so I crossed the street prepared for my second game of Red Rover.
This time I cleared the gauntlet with no trouble and began to look for the ticket counter in the maze of windows. There was a chart of all the departure times from the station posted on the wall, however, the trains and stations were all in Hindi. I went to a window titled Enquiry and slowly shoved my way to the front of the line with the rest of the locals. When I finally got the attention of the agent, she told me to go upstairs to the ticket office for foreign passport holders. I was relieved to hear there was a dedicated bureau to serving foreigners. You see, I think India realizes that the place can be a little overwhelming for foreigners so at many tourists sites, they have a separate entrance so foreigners can avoid the shoving match to check your shoes, get your ticket, enter the monument, etc.
I walked into the Foreign Ticket Office which had every appearance of the DMV in the late 60s. There were over a hundred people looking exhausted as they sat, zombie like, in chairs waiting for their number to appear on the red LED monitor. Thats right, I said LED, not LCD. You remember those glowing read watch displays from the 70s. Well that’s what I was looking at. This type of system appears to still exist in several parts of the world where you cannot conduct your business online. I headed to the box that would emit my number and selected my transaction type. You have to select between three options. One is General Information. The second is Reservations, and the third I can’t remember. I pressed a button and received a ticket that said ¨You are number¨ Yeah, that was it. No number following on this short piece of paper, and I deduced that the machine had just run out of paper while printing my ticket.
I pondered how to resolve this problem in a country where I only knew the words for hello and thank you. I picked a door of someone who appeared to be doing nothing and tried to gesture the problem. He said to use the machine on the other pole, but I told him that the screen was not on for that one. He yelled a few things to the guy outside the office who didn’t do anything so I was left to wonder whether someone might actually replace the paper.
A few minutes later, I again asked about the paper, knowing it would already be a long wait even if I had recieved my number initially. It took a bit of persistence, but I finally got the manager to get the guy outside of his office to move. He went to check the machine, and when a ticket was not produced, he open the box and told me it was out of paper. Yes, I knew that.
He left the room and returned with a new roll. Once he replaced it, I hit the buttons for both Enquiry and Reservation figuring it was better to be prepared for both instead of being sent from Enquiry back to the machine for pushing the button for reservation. Truly a DMV experience. Still, my reservation ticket was number 369 and they were only on 242. Yeah, this is how I wanted to be spending my first day in Delhi. I would have left, but the guy at the Enquiry desk had told me that trains for the next two days were sold out and that the next available option was an overnight train. Clearly reserving a train in advance is imperative in India.
As I was sitting in the waiting room watching the four reservation clerks work through the numbers, I spoke with a woman who told me it was possible to book a ticket on the 3rd class car with the locals if I bought my ticket downstairs, and since I had quite a while to wait, I decided to give that a try. I was rebuffed and again sent up to the Foreign Ticket Office.
Resigned to resolve this today, I sat watching the reservation clerk process number 253. Back in the 70s when you had to wait in line at post offices and banks to conduct your business with a person, I always carried a book to pass the time, but today I had deliberately removed my book from my bag figuring it was a tour day, and I wouldn’t have time for reading a book. So I just watched the day pass and began to regret having been thwarted in the morning when the line was probably shorter.
As happens with these numbering systems, some people just give up, so there were often times when the reservation clerk would punch in the next number and no one would show up. Being government workers, they were in no hurry, and I watched them drink tea or read a little of the newspaper before punching the button for the next number. I felt like I was in an ironic movie set in the 50s.
Mind you, the whole time this was going, numerous Indian people would just come sit down regardless of their number and start making a reservation. Cutting the queue is definitely a pastime and source of pride here, and I managed to assimilate to a degree, but I dont have the spirit to ever become an expert line jumper knowing what it’s like to be the person waiting in line.
When my number finally glowed in red, I wasted no time getting to the desk lest he hit the number again and tell me I had missed my turn. I had seen the clerks do this too. There’s a culture of self righteous passive aggression here, and people love to tell you when you’ve made a mistake. The locals respond by arguing which seems to be the intent of the aggressor anyway. Perhaps it is to be understood when there is not much other liveliness in your day.
The clerk was really helpful and acknowledged while the train I had originally wanted was sold out, there were other stations in Delhi that I could leave from to go to Jaipur that day. I took the opportunity to book my tickets for the rest of my time in India. Travel is so cheap that even if I didn’t use the tickets, it would cost me nothing. The dot matrix printer punched out four tickets, and I was on my way.
Back to my travel day, I left the hotel and enjoyed a Chai tea from the cart I had been frequenting every morning I had been here. My chai maker wished me safe travels, and I began to walk towards the train station. I knew I would catch a rickshaw, but I figured I would have more bargaining power if they approached me first. Just to get an idea for a starting point, I asked the first driver I passed how much to the train station. 300 rupees. I knew that was a ridiculous price and didn’t even feel like haggling with him as I expected to pay less than 100.
The next guy I passed looked more weary for business so I asked him. He quoted me 100 rupees, and since it was starting to creep inside the comfort zone I’d given myself for getting to the station, I agreed. Besides, I appreciated his reasonable start point in pricing.
I arrived at the station an hour before my train departure, and I felt relieved that this alternative train station was less busy than the main terminal. I went to the Enquiry window to find out which track my train would be leaving from. With the extra time I had, I decided to go watch how things worked with a train already at the platform. Fortunately, the destination of the train was written in both English and Hindi. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually know what the final destination of my train would be so I’d have to trust the woman at the enquiry desk and get on the train that showed up at platform one at 9:20.
I noticed that the there were sleeper cars, air conditioned cars, and non-air conditioned cars. As I walked the length of the train, I saw that each car was labeled sequentially so that would correspond to the car on my ticket number. I also noted that on all of the AC and sleeper cards, there was a list of seat assignments for the reserved spaces. I even stepped on board to get a look at the train layout. Now I felt ready to catch my train.
As the time of my departure approached, I headed to platform one and was comforted to see other foreigners waiting, another indication I was in the right place. All the foreigners seem to follow the same loop: New Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, New Delhi. Naturally, I would be breaking that loop, but their presence told me I was in the right place.
I put my bag down and began to repack for my journey. Whether it’s a bus or a train, whenever I may be asked to stow my backpack, I pull out my day pack and fill it with the things it would be costly to replace. I pulled out my passport, money, computer, electronics bag and ear plugs just in case there was a screaming child on board. The clothes and toiletries I left in my big backpack as they can easily be replaced if it is taken.
The train arrived on schedule. The destination written on its side and car numbers appearing sequentially as the train rolled into the station. I got in and found my seat without a hitch, and this is my process for catching a train in India.