h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The ticket wallah at Churchgate told me I would arrive in Udaipur at 7.00. OK, I though, that's just ten hours.

After changing trains in pre-dawn panic at Allahabad I learn that we do not reach Udaipur until 7.00 PM.

The vegetation is becoming gradually less dense as palm trees give way to baked red earth. I travelled to Allahabad with a Frenchman in a crowded sleeping car - now I am sitting opposite Sanjay, a 24 year old accountant from Bombay, and his mother, who are travelling to Udaipur for a weeks holiday. I have not seen a cloud for a week.

Just went for a cigarrete, sitting with legs dangling out of the train door. Suddenly the ground dropped beneath me into a deep, dry riverbed. Brush covered hills in the distance and waving peasant children in the foreground.

It is good to have left the chaos, crowds and filth of Bombay, but with that I also left behind a kind of security. There are no other Westeners on this train. I just hope my man at the Pushkar Palace holds my reservation - I told him I'd be there at midday.

(Transcribed from notes written on train to Udaipur, 8.00 AM this morning)
Next stop - Jaipur