The Little French Home

I had planned to go to another famous place for lassi, but there was no time, so I walked another twenty minutes or so to a restaurant I had looked up near the station.

It was a place called Nibs Cafe, which looked better for dessert than for a meal.

So I found an Italian restaurant nearby on Google Maps and went there instead.

What it served was Italian, but the restaurant was called The Little French Home.

I arrived at four, and after a trip to the toilet, drying my sweat in the cool air conditioning inside, I felt myself recovering a little.

I was so thirsty I ordered a drink called Pink City, and it was genuinely a knockout.

It tasted of strawberry and watermelon in good balance, and while it was not especially cold the flavour itself was good.

Knowing they would charge separately for mineral water anyway, I ordered another drink with a mind to carrying it out.

It was called Three Berries, and instead of the berry drink I had in mind it was a bitter, chilli-scented, spicy cocktail.

It was so unpleasant I could not even finish it.

The Risotto I Ordered Wrong

I ordered two dishes and got one of them wrong.

I ordered risotto and pasta.

The risotto was called chicken and tomato, so I assumed tomato, but it was cream with sliced cherry tomatoes on top.

Instead of the kind Indian manager who looked Italian, a rather clueless server brought it, so I thought the food had come out wrong by mistake.

So I called the manager over and asked again, and it had in fact come out correctly.

Both were more alfredo than cream, but either way two cream dishes was very rich.

Both tasted good, though.

Rather than tasting authentically Italian it felt somewhat adjusted to Indian palates.

It was good all the same.

The risotto was strong on pepper and shallot.

The pasta was penne and was simply unremarkable.

I had thought I could polish both off easily, but I was far fuller than expected.

Part of it was probably that I ate in a rush.

A service charge of 90 rupees had been added, which seemed odd, so I searched online.

It turned out they add it as they please.

You can ask for it to be taken off, and I only learned that now.

Money Money

Walking straight to Nibs Cafe nearby after eating, children swarmed me again and asked for money.

I had been spoken to so much by then that I was worn out with touts and children alike, and sometimes I just ignored them.

Children, though, I cannot quite ignore.

Meaning to tease them, I held my hand out the same way and copied them, saying money, money, and being children they just grinned shyly.

When I held the camera up to take a photo they threw up peace signs; forward, sweet kids.

The Cafe With the Lights Out

Nibs Cafe was tucked into a corner of a building where it was hard to find, and going in, the lights were all off and a member of staff just looked at me blankly without responding.

A man who seemed to be the manager came in and said flatly that they were not open.

It did not annoy me exactly, but I came out thinking, what kind of place is this.

Only then did the man come out and apologise, saying the power was out and they could not sell anything.

I had a sugar craving and wanted a top-up, so it was a shame.

Jaipur Station

Now I had to walk another twenty to thirty minutes.

My energy had been well drained, but I had recovered a little and was fine.

Walking on I could see the railway tracks, and I arrived at Jaipur station, which looked chaotic and felt new to me.

Coming to catch a train was another first, so it felt new.

I reached the station at five and the train left at thirty-five past, so I had a fair amount of time, but I was worried about whether I could find the right train and get on it.

In the hall there were a great many people lying flat on the floor, sleeping or waiting.

India, as ever.

You show your QR and go through to the platform, and they checked bags.

I had no idea where I was meant to board, but I asked two Indian men who looked switched-on and managed to get on in the right place.

I went to my seat and was about to sit down, put off by food spilled on the upholstery, but I wiped it roughly with a wet wipe and sat anyway.

The Young Man Writing a Journal

There was a man waiting on the platform with me who looked American and about my age or younger.

Watching him writing diligently in a journal, I felt as if I were looking at a young man with something pure about him and a real appetite for life, and it quietly pleased me.

Thinking about it, I am about the same age, I am also travelling India, and I keep a journal of my own, so I wondered whether I look like that to other people.

The me I see is not nearly so flattering, though.

The train left at thirty-five past exactly.

If I had been even a minute late I would not have caught it.

The Train Meal

I had not realised food came with it, and when it arrived my mood lifted out of curiosity.

Opening it up there were things I had never seen in my life, and the main item was a sandwich.

It was a sandwich with nothing but cheese in it, and it was passable.

The almonds were good to eat one at a time, and the thing that looked like a caramel sweet gave off something strongly spiced, cinnamon maybe, which I did not like.

There was also a hollow bread filled with curry as a main item, which was so-so.

And later a proper dinner came.

Biryani, naan, two kinds of curry and potatoes, and since none of it was good I simply did not eat.

I ate only the yogurt that came with it.

The old woman beside me was eating with her hands with great relish, and I kept noticing how roughly she wiped them.

It comes out generously but it did not suit my palate, so it was no good to me.

If it had suited my palate I would have been satisfied.

With nothing to do, I kept noticing the skin inside my thumb, torn from wringing laundry too hard the night before.

No Signal

The data was so badly out that I could do nothing.

I filed a pile of complaints with Maaltalk, that useless company, but got nothing beyond an apology.

Google Maps pulled in my location but not the map itself, so I had no idea where I was.

The system is that passengers get off on their own, and I had to get off at Paharganj Road.

In the end I took my cue from others and got off.

Almost nobody got off at Paharganj Road; nearly everyone had got off before it.

After about five hours we arrived at exactly half past ten.

Paharganj

Off the train, I came out onto the famous Paharganj Road.

The moment I was out I ignored the touts and booked an Uber, which matched somewhere I had to walk to.

The Uber was due to arrive sooner than I expected, so I shoved through very dense traffic and crowds and barely made it.

But the Uber kept circling the area and never arrived.

I waited about ten minutes and in the end it never came, so I cancelled.

With no data and no energy left, I was in real trouble.

And on Paharganj Road, the busiest place in New Delhi, the traffic was so bad that cars could barely move.

The crowds were beyond belief and the noise pollution was world class.

I went back to the station to deal with the taxi drivers I had ignored.

But I could not get the price I wanted, so I just booked another Uber.

Fortunately this time I managed to meet it properly.

It took about thirty minutes to reach a hostel called Joey's Place.

Joey's Place

I arrived near midnight, and in the lobby on the second floor Indian guests were playing video games and having fun together.

I checked in with a very capable-looking manager, tall and thin and wearing glasses.

He was so kind and friendly that if I had had no schedule or arrived earlier I would have wanted to hang out with the people there.

Towels cost extra, and when I said I had no cash he said he would just buy one for me in exchange for a good Booking.com review, so we shook on it.

I got to my room on the third floor, where there was a big, very gentle-looking man.

He said he was from Tamil Nadu, far to the south.

He must have been bored, because he was still up and kept talking to me; he was kind and good-natured, but I was exhausted and went off to shower quickly.

Bedbugs

I came back from the shower, sorted my things, and was just about to sleep.

I found a bedbug.

The worst insect I have ever dealt with.

The old nightmare crept back up and I started quietly stressing about what to do.

As long as there is a bedbug in this bed, there is no sleeping in this room.

And would it be in this room only?

Thinking it would be in the other rooms too, and about getting a refund, and where I would go to sleep if I did, exhaustion washed over me.

I went down first and showed the photo of the bedbug and said there were bedbugs, and he said it was not a bedbug.

He is a sharp guy, so surely he would know, I thought, but I told him I knew this for certain from experience and that it was a bedbug.

In the end I was shown a bed in another room.

He was a nice man I did not want to argue with, and I was too tired, so I decided to just sleep in a bed that looked fine.

The pillow was off-putting, so I spread out the pillowcase, the best thing I brought on this trip, and slept.

All I could hope was that the underwear I had washed in the shower earlier would dry quickly.