20 Dec 2014

Chintu Travels: Day1, Kolkata - Delhi - Agra, First Wings, and a Foggy Start.
Phew, Long day. I've been up since 4 in the morning. The start has been Amazing. though there have been very few photos, initial awkwardness may be?

19th December 2014. 

First Wings
The guy sitting in front of me sheepishly asked me pointing to the mountain ranges on the horizon,

"Which Mountains are these?" 

"I don't actually know, but I'm guessing that they are the Himalayas" I said without looking at him.

"Oh, okay", He probably thought I was being rude. 

I hesitatingly told him, "I'm sorry, but this is my first time in an Aeroplane" 

He looked at me for a while and said " Mine too" and we both burst into a loud chuckle.
The pretty lady, sitting beside me woke up from her slumber probably assuming that the plane hit a turbulence.



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Difference
After running here and there for a ticket to Agra from New Delhi railway station, I was hungry, I went to the IRCTC cafeteria on the station, and asked for food availability, The guy on the counter told me the menu. 

I asked him for a Thali.

"Special or Normal?"

"What's the difference ?" 

"Nothing much, just the name and the price"  He said, uninterested.

I stared at him and didn't respond. He looked up to me and said, "The special is priced at 87 rupees, the normal is 35 bucks, there is an extra curry in the special one, but it isn't worth the extra cost."  

I didn't know if he was joking or serious. I ordered the normal one.


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Foggy start
The train from Delhi to Agra took double the usual time, I was well guided about the dos and don'ts in Agra by my co-passengers with whom I stuck a quick rapport, one of them a surgeon in the army, currently posted in The Democratic Republic of Congo on duty for UN peace corps, coming home for a vacation, The other an environmentalist, coming to the city to visit his parents. I intend to experience everything they told me about the city in the next two days. 

I was welcomed by the people at Zostel  decorating the Christmas tree and the Lobby, the people here are from all over the world, New Zealand, Germany, UK, Spain to name a few. after chatting for a while in the lobby, we went for dinner and we were hit by fog. By fog I mean intense fog with visibility being reduced to a few meters, after blindly following the road on instinct, our host Kartik stopped at a Dhaba where he regularly eats we had a nice conversation and concerns of the next day being ruined by fog. 


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