… — when you\u2019re in a bigger city. However, it\u2019s only available <\/em>for routes departing the bigger cities, so when you arrive to a smaller city, you have to take your chances swimming with the sharks. That means lots of pushing and shoving and line-cutting (it\u2019s respectful, but can get confusing) in the queue for the other<\/em> last-ditch, the Tatkal Quota. These tickets are set aside to go on sale at 10:00 in the AM on the day before the route\u2019s departure, and are offered at a give-or-take 25% premium above the nominal fare \u2013 but they too sell out very quickly.<\/p>\nThis very morn, I waited on line in the bitter foggy cold for two hours\u2019 time, and when my number come up, the tatkals for tomorrow\u2019s overnight to Jaipur were already sold out. I\u2019ve still got a waiting-list ticket to hand, so there is hope. But if that<\/em> doesn\u2019t get confirmed, it may just be Xmas in Amritsar for little old me \u2013 or perhaps maybe a bus to Delhi, which is in the wrong direction to the sunny climes, but will have Tourist Quota available. (It\u2019s easy to book buses, or non-heated cars on the trains, but I already posted all my cold-weather clothes back home before departing Nepal, assuming I\u2019d find delectably radiating warmth here in India. Hostel colleagues have been purchasing blankets for their<\/em> chilly overnights, but, ever the tightwad, I’ve so far resisted…)<\/p>\nDecided I\u2019m not going to stress about the trains, though. There\u2019s too much of India to be able to experience even given many lifetimes\u2019 worth, so may as well just relax and enjoy its pleasures in whichever location one happens to have splashed down. Amritsar is<\/em> lovely, and the hostel here is in my top-five favourites…but this all-day fog-in pattern is beginning to wear me down.<\/p>\nWell, I may not know where my dimpled ass is going to be seated<\/em> come Christmas Day, but there\u2019s absolutely no question to what it\u2019ll be jammin\u2019 out, n\u2019est pas?<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9k7RBkOMNOY<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n\u00b7<\/p>\n
That there is the fuckin\u2019 ticket<\/em>, is what that is!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Part 1: Sillius Maximus [dc]E[\/dc]ver wondered what it would have looked like had Monty Python staged the Nuremberg Rally? Well it turns out that this exact scenario plays out nightly just north of Amritsar, at the only crossing between India … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}