“I can’t breathe Jo!”
I breathlessly glanced over my shoulder. My sister’s face was the colour of a ripe plum and her lumbering trot had disintegrated into a not so fast walk.
“Hurry!” I shouted. “We’re almost there.”
I could see the open doors ahead and knew we had seconds to jump in before the doors slammed shut like a giant beast devouring all who dared enter.
The dust and smog were filling my lungs as I lunged towards the doors, and threw myself inside with all the grace of a failed & painful Fosbury flop.
My sister wasn’t far behind and heaved herself into the cabin as the doors crashed shut behind her.
Accompanied by a loud creaking noise, the huge green metal container shuddered and began to slowly pull away.
With audible sighs of relief, my sister & I stowed our heavy backpacks in the luggage hold and crumpled into our seats. A collective mess of sweat, dust & tears.
“We made it,” I said, looking at my sister’s plum face, which had now returned to more of a rose pink as she started to get her breath back.
“Welcome aboard Ma’am”, a cheerful Indian steward had suddenly materialised out of thin air. “Would you like some tea?”
My sister & I started to laugh.
Sisters on Tour
Every year my sister and I like to go on a “sisters on tour” expedition.
I live in Thailand, she lives in the UK, so this gives us a chance to spend some time together while exploring the world, which we both love to do.
Pre-pandemic, we’d done an Asian City tour, travelling through Bangkok, Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore and more.
We’d discovered the beauty of Cambodia, Bagan in Myanmar & Ha Long Bay in Vietnam on a cultural tour.
And on this particular adventure, we were backpacking through Nepal and India with a short luxurious stay in the Maldives to top it off.
We’d completed the Nepal leg of the journey, which if you haven’t been I highly recommend.
Kathmandu is a magical city and who wouldn’t want to visit a place where the general greeting is “Namaste.” Pure tranquillity!
We’d arrived in Delhi a few days before and had already journeyed to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, spent a couple of days touring Delhi, and were now en route to Jaipur before jetting off to Varanasi (another magical city, but I’ll save that for a different post).
After a good nights sleep in a cosy room in an Airbnb not far from New Delhi train station, we enthusiastically jumped in a cab, excited for the next stage of our journey.
We had no idea of the chaos that was about to ensue!
And so it begins…
After a slow, traffic stunted journey, we arrived at what looked more like a Saturday afternoon football crowd.
The taxi, surrounded by people, tuk-tuks, bicycles & any other mode of transport you can think of, ground to a halt not far from the station entry.
We jumped out into the throngs of people and made our way to where we thought the platforms were likely to be.
I’d pre-booked the tickets online using the very efficient Indian irctc.com booking system, so we just needed to find the train and we were good to go.
Thankfully there was a big board displaying the timetable & platform numbers, so determining where we needed to be wasn’t particularly taxing.
As we found the queue of people headed onto the platforms, an Indian chap in a white shirt, casual slacks and leather sandals asked to see our tickets.
Albeit he wasn’t in any kind of uniform, he’d been checking the tickets of those in front of us, so we had no reason to question his request.
I showed him the printed tickets I’d downloaded from the app, which he seemed to study carefully, then proceed to start shaking his head.
“Is there a problem?’ I cheerfully inquired.
“This train has been cancelled,” he said with authority. “You’ll have to go to Delhi Junction train station to buy a new ticket and catch the train from there”.
My heart sank. What? I looked at my sister who looked just as perplexed as me.
“But the board shows it’s leaving on time from this platform?” I queried.
“The board has not been updated yet,”, he said without missing a beat. “In a few minutes that will say cancelled, and you only have half an hour to get to Old Delhi Train Station to catch the next train to Jaipur, otherwise you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
On that point, I knew he was right. There was only one train a day to Jaipur from the New Delhi train station, so it made sense there was only one available from the other stations also.
I started to panic. We’d planned the trip meticulously and only had the weekend in Jaipur before leaving for Varanasi.
If we missed the train and postponed the journey to the next day, it would give us only Sunday in Jaipur where most of the sites we wanted to explore were closed, plus we’d booked a tour guide for Saturday already!
From that moment everything happened in a fast-moving blur.
Before we knew it, sandal guy was leading us to the front of a ticket booth where another white-shirted, casual slacked man confirmed that indeed the train was cancelled.
They quickly walked us towards a waiting taxi, urging us to hurry if we wanted to get to Delhi Junction and catch the train that day!
As the taxi took off with a squeal, my sister & I were scrambling to collect our thoughts. What was going on? Nothing made sense.
I double-checked my train app which clearly said the train was still leaving from New Delhi Train Station as my quick thinking sister was tapping ‘ train scam’ into her phone.
Sure enough, and by a stroke of luck, our recent experience had happened to someone who wrote about it on TripAdvisor and it was at the top of the search results!
By this time, we were once again embroiled in the heavy traffic outside the station and only had 8 minutes before our train left.
I shouted at the taxi driver to turn around for double what it cost us to get there in the morning.
As Bobby Flackman so beautifully states in the movie Spinal Tap;
‘Money talks, bullshit walks!’
The taxi driver, quick as a flash, locked the steering wheel into a right-hand turn cornering his car like it was on wheels and headed down a dark side street.
Unbelievably a completely empty road opened up before us.
Within minutes we were back where we’d started. I threw a wad of cash at the bewildered taxi driver as my sister & I jumped out and ran towards the platform.
This time, of course, there was no one to be seen checking tickets.
We ran through the entrance, up to the platform and the rest, as they say, is history.
So what was the scam?
Unbeknownst to us, the casual slacked guys would have instructed the taxi to a back street booking office, rather than the train station.
There, we would have been encouraged to book a car (at $200 or more) to take us to Jaipur having missed the train.
If they’d picked their mark well, rather than rebooking for the next day, we would have accepted our fate, paid the money and been driven to Jaipur instead, maybe stopping at an Indian wedding or Sari shop or two along the way (generating even more cash for the scammers).
It was beautifully executed and we almost fell for it, which is why I’m writing this story.
Hopefully, anyone planning a trip to India may come across this post and stop and think before they allow themselves to be hoaxed.
Unfortunately, we were subjected to a few more dubious ‘experiences’ during our trek across India but had learned to keep our wits about us and not trust the first thing we were told.
Why India Should Still Be on Your Bucket List
India is indeed a beautiful country and most of the people we encountered were both gracious and generous.
The food is to die for and can only be described as an explosion of taste in your mouth.
It’s a vibrant country, full of culture, colour and steeped in spiritual history.
I can’t wait to go back with my husband and explore even more of this diverse and fascinating country.
Regrettably, there are scam artists the world over and the more countries I visit, and experiences I encounter, the more worldly-wise I become.
However, the Delhi train scam will remain in my memories as one of my favourites!