Aurangabad

We are in Aurangabad and this might be a short blog - power cuts a constant threat and even when you have power there are load sharing arrangements - good way to get you up is to cut off power to the ceiling fan at 6am! Its hot here and a fan is essential.

We had one of those great railway journeys you hope to forget on the way here from Mumbai. We know you like to hear that we are also suffering and this was suffering - we were on Sleeper Class, not AC and thought that would be OK as it was a 4.30 - 11.30pm ride not an overnight. It was in any case all we could get. But we could not have been more wrong, at the first stop in a Mumbai suburb loads of people swarmed into the carriage, some commuters and some longer distance travellers, any notion of seat or bunk booking went out the window (well there weren't windows there were metal bars). Tess looked out to see a face looking in - someone hanging on the outside! Well it might on paper have seemed like a shortish journey but on those hard seats with little padding and several extra people crammed onto the seat and up on the top bunk it seemed an age. Things got worse when India's version of Harold Steptoe arrived with two women (wife and daughter maybe) and started busying himself inserting them into non existent seating spaces and inserting his copious bags under seats - even chucking out other bags. When he started under our seat it only took about 10 loud Noes and Tessa's legs firmly in the way to convince him he was not going to move our bags as well. Mind you the way he got those women seated (and eventually on bunks) got space to lay out the evening meal was a sight to behold. We did not have seats together (the big problem of having Reservations Awaiting Confirmation we discovered) so sat togother anyway and then declined to shift for bunk putting down - Tess had the bunk but we would have had to shift an old couple and have me got back to shift the several people occupying my bunk space. So they hated us but had to wait until midnight when we and most of the train got off to get their final bunks down.

We decided that with the RAC status for our long trip down to Kochi that we had been overenthusiastic about the following days travel. We have a nice cheap hotel here with other travellers to chat to and we have already been to the stunning Ajanta Caves and will go to the Ellora Caves today. Tomorrow we fly out of here to Mumbai and then onto Kochi - arriving the day we would have in any case if we had taken the long train ride. We got our money back on the train tickets and have spent a good deal more on the flights - and the constant power outages meant we have managed to book ourselves on the first flight twice! Just as I was about to press Send the power went so with a loud OH NO! we started again - and how have two tickets each! Hopefully a visit to the airline might sort it out but its one of Indias' budget airlines so we might not get a refund - that will mean that power cut cost us 100 pounds.

Brian