It's not all beer and skittles.....it's more like coke and avoiding being skittled .

Unfortunately Ashish was unable to get away from his studio, to see us today, but after a breakfast of local food, we engaged a tuk-tuk and driver Amin to take us around for about 2 hors for about $4.00.

The first stop was India gate, which is sort of like our National Shrine of  Rememberence, with extended green lines of sight for kilometers, up and down.  Alas we were there when they were expecting a visit from a state minister, so there were lots of police, Military Police, security, and ceremonial soldiers, guarding the space.  To say security was tight, is a bit of an exaggeration...an old lady with a bin and a boy on a bicycle breach the cordon just while we were there.  ABC was tut-tutting this poor display of security area discipline.

Just to prove we were there him before elephant print shirt

The bicycle inside the cordon. You can see the active 'concern'

We couldn't hang around for the arrival of the minister, so we trundled off to..........,.'a good India shop ' that Amin knows where there is ...well we went there, just so Amin would get his delivery fee.

The  Handicrafts Bazar Emporium Store was in fact an Aladin's cave of all things India...pashmina, silk, dress shoes with pointy, turny-up toes and sparkles, kutas ( like a long sleeved Punjabi jacket) and Ali babar trousers.  With elephants on them,,,,our resolve not to buy anything out the window, so $20.00 later, guess who had an elephant print Pyjamas (in the Hindi sense of the word).  But we do know what we can get for all the souvineers, youse guys are to going to get.....

Wandered back to the area  around the hotel, to kill time before the train.... School had just got out.....maybe Some of our high schools can take a leaf out of the transport infrastructure of one of the local high school in Delhi. Maybe yours Marie?   Motor cycle driven.

Hey, you forgot the padlock....you probably can't see the man with the shot-gun riding...well shot-gun

Then there was the high capacity cyclo, which carried nine....count them nine young souls and one cyclist.

Off to the train station, another experience,  Flinders Street railway station wintery Friday evening  peak hour...not a spot on it....it would be  35 degrees cooler, eitghty percent less humidity, and about a million less people.   Love it..........

Fortunately Surya had booked, subject to internet confirmation, two First Class, air conditioned, chair car seats.....which we discovered an hour before we left the hotel, hadn't been confirmed, we'll that's what the concierge said....I'm not convinced as I feel Ashish did it for us yesterday.

This carriage has lay back seats...it would be nice if the one Andrew and Nathalie had could be returned to an upright position.....  Bit of a fanarkle with the seats, we accidentally sat in the wrong seats, but that wasn't the problem....two other contenders for various seat configurations, both told us, very politely, that they would sort it out....which they did....one of the parties moved to some spare seats in another carriage.....seat allocation seems a but rubbery.  

Having read 'Around Ther Equator' (also available free in speaking book form from Librivox)  written by Samuel Clements (without doubt Andrews favourite author...after himself of course..) describing his journey around the world, from about 1890-92. His descriptions of the railway then is reminiscent of our journey today...rubbery seat booking, chaos, right down to the Sikh dominated conductor / inspector class....resplendent in their spotless short sleeved suits,manicured beard and especially moustache and they all wear light blue turbans.   Nothing much has changed since Mark Twain's time eh?

After elephant print shirt.

P.S.O's on trains be jiggered...these ones have machine guns....does it make one feel safe or.......

We arrived at Amritsar, to our reckoning, two or s hours late, and our instructions were to meet dere at the 'Golden Temple Modal' entrance.   As we alighted we asked a number of fellow travellers where this entrance was, no one knew...took the wrong exit and was assailed by dozens of touts, someone hopefully pointed us in another direction and we found Dere standing in front of a lovely big model of the Golden Temple.   ....to the hotel by private car, then more paperwork at the hotel....we're in. It is a lovely quaint place.....just down the road from the Queensland Hotel.  

Been a big day so good night.

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James' and Phil's turn will come