Trying to catch the train

At 5:45 in the evening we had to catch our train ride to Jaisalmer from Delhi. Due to some time wasting on our part, we were a little late to the train station. Getting to a train station late in India is a bad idea. I recommend against it.

First, it's a place of total chaos to begin with and second, most everything is written in Hindi. The station has 16 different platforms and we didn't know where ours was. We asked these two men who looked like they worked there and they told us to go to platform 16. So we race on down to 16. We walk up and down the entire length of the train and see nothing that says we belong there. So we walk down platform 17, again nothing. So we ask some one and that person says platform 10. Now our time is running short so we scurry along, big huge backpacks and all. We walk up and down the length of platform 10 and realize that it's not our train either. Awesome.

So we ask yet another person, but at this point I've given up hope. He tells us to try platform 10. So we race up the stairs and back down the stairs to platform 10. On the sides of the trains, they post the names and seating arrangements for every car. So Ash and I are racing up and down the side of the train trying to read all these dittos taped to the sides.

Amongst all this chaos and noise and people and smells and fumes, we finally see a little piece of sanity. There at the bottom of a ripped up piece of paper falling from the side of the train we see the words that are so familiar to us, "Ashlee Dixon seat 18, Kevin Maddrey seat 19" It's amazing the feeling that seeing those simple names gave us. We get on the train and set ourselves down for a night and a day on the train.