I'm coming at you LIVE from Ludhiana in Punjab. We just arrived here around 11:30am today, after arriving via the Shatabdi Express train from Delhi. It's a fairly fast train; the travel time was only 4 hours. We received a bottle of water, tea, and an egg omelet/toast meal on the train, which satisfied me for breakfast.
There were some real hardcore slums beside the tracks as the train traveled through north Delhi...it's pretty jarring to see that kind of grinding poverty.
I could tell as soon as we crossed over into Punjab as I received a text message on my Airtel mobile phone saying "Welcome to Punjab!". A while later, I received a message advertising cheap long distance rates to Bihar, which goes to show how many Biharis have migrated to Punjab.
DIGESTIVE UPDATE: The jig is up. The pizza from Pizza Hut that we had in Agra destroyed our digestive systems. Actually, both Dad and I were destroyed, but my cousin Geetu was fine since she's used to the local food. I was awakened at around 3:30am that night by the feeling of my stomach tightening. Five minutes later, I bolted for the bathroom. Dad was similarly awakened at 4am, so fortunately our stomachs decided to coordinate with each other to avoid a bathroom conflict. One dose of Immodium fixed me up though, and I'm fine now.
2 comments:
Did limbless beggars accost you on the train? That's what I remember.
No, we took the Shatabdi Express, which is a more "expensive" train because it's faster. Also, the seating is assigned, so random people can't be on the train.
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