Monday, November 7, 2011

Heading Home

It's Monday morning here, our last day in India for this trip. On Saturday we went to Meerut for the day to visit our friends the Lals. We have done the trip frequently by car or taxi, and it is a long, noisy drive. So this time we decided to go by train. The Shatabdi that we normally take to and from Dehra Dun stops in Meerut, so we got outbound seats in the morning and inbound in the evening. The morning train leaves at 6:50 AM. We like to travel by Metro, but the trains only start running at 6 AM and we had to change at Rajiv Chowk. So instead, we left the hotel about 5:45 and walked toward the main street that runs under the Metro line. We found an auto rickshaw right away and headed off to the Ajmeri Gate entrance to the New Delhi train station. It took about 15 minutes. The station has 16 platforms and our train runs on Platform 16. The main station entrance is near Platform 1, which means that you have to walk up a long stairway and across a long bridge over all the lines. So it is important to remember to tell your driver that you want the Ajmeri Gate entrance, from which you can walk right onto the correct platform.

We arrived at Meerut about 9:00 and Anju and Sandeep were there to meet us. We had a very quiet day with the family. I was in the middle of a fierce cold that I picked up somewhere in Delhi. Brij is recuperating from a bout of bronchitis (we knew it was bad when he thought it was too much trouble to go upstairs to watch a cricket match on TV!). Dan went out and got a haircut at his favorite barber who gives a good head massage; he was asked why it had been so long since he had been there. Brij made his excellent aloo parathas for breakfast, served with fresh dahi.



I napped a bit between breakfast and lunch. Anju cooked a wonderful lunch with meat curry, biriani, aloo ghobi, and chapatis.

The evening train comes through about 9:15, so Anju and Sandeep took us at 8:45. We hopped out of the car and only waited on the platform for 10 minutes or so. Once we got to New Delhi, we quickly found another scooter rickshaw and were back at our hotel before 11:30. A long day, but always a good visit.

This morning (Monday) I checked in online for our flight tonight. It is always good to be heading home.

1 comment:

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