Train to Haridwar car to Rishikesh

Well it's up very early to be collected at 5.15am for the Shatabdi Express train to Haridwar! Wearing my extra long kurta to fit in with the locals (I hope!) with breakfast in a box from the lovely hotel. Quick zip across town with Akshad our guide and his driver to Delhi Station and then shocked to be negotiating all the people in the lobby asleep (more on this later), we eventually get to the platform in plenty of time for our train. It has to be said that Akshad thought it best for us to look after our own transportation of cases to the platform, which seemed miles away including some negotiation of stairs. Our seemingly body building guide seemed to want to avoid the tricky porters, we had no experience of them so tried to keep up with Akshad and we all ended up rather sweaty, our hair begining to frizz in the humidity. Except Akshad, who was immaculately coiffed. On the platform the odd monkey on the fencing providing enough entertainment for a while, plus our lovely guide sorting out the finishing touches to my £6 worth of data allowance on my Indian SIM card.

The train arrives, and despite lots of jokes for ages from everyone about being on the roof (didn't see any of that, but did see some very packed trains), we had a very plush carriage 'Executive Chair Car'. We had no idea this came with tea and snacks and also an 'in flight meal'!! Plus free water and en-route entertainment on the sidings. The most exiting and interesting of these sights was the building work at Khatauli! A couple with their small kids were busy digging and were delighted to see us watching, they began to wave and the very beautiful woman had THE most amazing smile. What they hadn't realised was we were more interested in what was going on behind her. A couple of other women were moving bricks, overseen by at least half a dozen young men. One of the women had a soft circular pad on her head and bobbed down for the other woman to stack 8 (YES 8) bricks on top of her head which she carefully balanced and transported across the site.
We sped along, passing train after train, all cram packed full, including several 'Sleepers'. These had the carriage doors open and people were sitting with their legs dangling out of the moving train, watching the world go by.
As we hurtled past herds of cows, pigs and piles of rubbish, run down buildings and artstic graffiti it seemed on the whole we really don't know how lucky we are living in the UK, you really don't come across this volume of slums! But they certainly know how to enjoy themselves, periodically right at the side of the track we passed people preparing for Dussera, or Durga Puja, basically a big holiday and festival time. There were lots of canopies of red and gold tinsel fabric where families would soon be getting together and living it up!
Passing through various railway stations we notcied 'routine maintenance' being carried out on our carriage. This mostly involved an old lady hitting the bottom of our carriage very, very hard with a large shovel, repeatedly. Again and again. It brought us quite a bit of entertainment and amusement :)


After 5 hours on the Shatabdi Express train we reach a very rainy Haridwar, it's absolutely bouncing it down as we meet Devendra, our guide for the next few sights on our list. Off we go through Haridwar heading for Rishikesh. We pass the huge Shiva statue and our first sight of the swollen and muddy river Ganges, or Mother Ganga-g as the locals like to call it. All the rain and levels of rising water have made the water look milky as the sediment has been swirled around.
We thought the traffic would be better here, but with the up and coming holiday it's even more mad than Delhi, but on a very unmade road!