Bikaner, Tuesday

1445 Back at hotel. Been to old town (including Jain temple which had nice views from upstairs), fort and fort-adjacent museum so far. Got some bananas and going to eat them and then go for dinner at hotel restaurant at 6. Sore throat persists but not as annoying as last night. Struggled to get up in time for old town with Tofy at 10 but did more or less make it and I waited around for him maybe 15-30 mins anyway.

Not writing more now, food.

1610 Toffi and his brother been helping me sort out onward train, I think he is going to get me the ticket rather than me going to station. Going to Jalandhar and it's about an hour by bus from there. Overnight train but I have kind of been thinking I should try that. They asked for my help fixing the hotel location on booking.com which I half managed and I also helped them (not that I've ever done it before) add the hotel location to Google Maps.

1758 Joy. Netbook is refusing to charge. Since the little LED on the power lead stopped lighting up a few weeks ago, I am hoping this is just further progress in the mains adaptor breaking, rather than a fault with the netbook itself. I just might see if I can buy a power supply here or in Amritsar, or I might just have to do without it for the remaining 10 days or so and then try one of my parents laptop power supplies at Christmas and order a replacement then, though delivery might be a little tight and if the netbook itself is faulty then it would be nice to have more time to order a replacement. I am reluctant to mention it to staff here as Toffi already came in (to ask me if I wanted to book trains) and I mentioned it wasn't working and he half offered to buy it off me and I don't want to get into that at all again.

Have ordered dinner (T knocked on door) but it will take an hour to cook. Seems a bit pricey, there are three unlabelled columns on some items and I appear to be ordering out of the most expensive without explicitly asking or knowing what it means. But this is only relatively expensive; the main dish is weighing in about 300-400 so it's OK.

I got slightly pressured into paying 150 for a teensy jar of saffron at the old town with T, but a) it is at least tiny hence easy to lug round b) it just might not be a rip off c) if it is I am regarding this as a kind of tip, while it is a little overwhelming he is being super helpful and it would have cost me at least that to get a tuktuk there and back, he took me on his bike. (No helmets, naturally...)

He has arranged for a tuktuk to come and pick me up at 1030 tomorrow to go to the rat temple, then he is going to take me to the camel farm on his bike (!), then I will get a train at 0145 to Jwhatsit. So tomorrow night's hotel room is half wasted but it is cheap here and worth having to loiter in til train time. T seemed quite keen to sell me 3A not 2A ticket and I did have to agree if there was no availability for 2A 3A would be OK. He seems to regard the 300ish difference as a lot, which it is as a percentage but not in absolute terms. I guess 3A will be OK, it's just that I've never been on an overnight train ever anywhere so want to minimise discomfort as much as possible the first time. Still, I have at least been in 2-tier AC and 3-tier not-even AC sleepers during the day so it is not totally unfamiliar territory.

1941 OK, got my train ticket. It cost 1350ish as printed on the ticket, plus a mysterious extra 950 which I have no fucking idea where it comes from or why I have been charged it but T asked for it. He may have mentioned this earlier but even then it was totally unclear what the fuck it was for, I felt battered by the storms of booking confusion (whether natural or whipped up by the hotel) and like I had no choice in the matter. No point making a fuss about it, I will offset it against other services rendered.

They can arrange for hot water here but it comes out of the 'lower' tap not the shower so I said not to bother. As we discussed, and my experience of the hotels I've been at confirms, this is just not an 'Indian thing' (except presumably at the top end where I'm sure they do).

The 950 is annoying but it may be genuine. All the same, I do wonder if it would be different had I gone to the station myself, but I don't know if they have tourist facilities here (OTOH, since they seem to like to separate off reservation, it only requires designating a window). I have booked a day or two in advance until now without any mysterious 'not printed on the ticket' fees. Since no one seems to have expressed interest in my passport details and that has always been key to booking maybe that (crappily) accounts for it. No point getting worked up about it, nothing to be done about it now. I will however make a point of buying my ticket in Amritsar myself.

Joined by Tofi's mate Jeff over dinner, which was OK although I would kind of have preferred to eat privately. I might go to see him camel wool textile thing he volunteers at tomorrow; I'm kind of just going with the flow. Toffi joined us afterwards and we discussed going to camel farm; he said it would be about 200 by rickshaw but then he said he'd take me on his bike which would be more comfortable if I paid for the fuel, and I kind of didn't like to object. Fuck it, will be a change from worrying about dying of cancer to worry about dying of a motorcycle crash while not wearing a helmet.

Need to book a hotel in Amritsar. This is doable with my phone - I hope - but would be much nicer with netbook. I am slightly tempted to stay a night or two in Jwhatsit given I have quite a bit of time left and don't want to spend more than a day or so in Delhi, and it would avoid seeking a bus to Amritsar after a night on the train (I am assuming my ticket is at least valid), but it is completely not mentioned in my guide and it will be 11amish when train gets in barring delays so plenty of time to fart around and I should sleep a bit on the train and blah blah so I think I will just book for Amritsar. No point wasting time, I have way too much time for just Amritsar (even if I do an excursion to watch the ceremonies at the Pakistan border) but maybe I will find an intermediate point between Amritsar and Delhi. As I say I really don't want to be in Delhi any longer than is necessary to allow a safety margin for transport to get me to Delhi.

Am feeling a little harried here I must admit, no doubt that train ticket has slightly shaken my faith and I hope if I do end up at the camel wool shop I am not pressured to buy - Jeff asked me if I might be able to go as I came into my room, and although he said earlier no pressure to buy I have heard that story before.

I guess I am still going to give the positive review T is clearly so keen on on booking.com (he says tripadvisor has fake reviews, BTW, I had never had that percepion) and I won't mention my non-confirmable dubiousness about the train ticket but I now feel a bit of a shill for writing the totally positive review I am going to write. T did say something vaguely about this as if he feels it looks suspicious; this may of course be to cover up the fact it is.

I think I am going to avoid mentioning the name of the hotel on the blog so I don't have to worry about these notes ever being read by anyone at the hotel.

I probably am a paranoid git but trust is so easily lost and that train ticket business just smells bad to me.

2029 Just tried netbook again and it is charging now. F knows. But if it's an intermittent problem best to wait for it to go permanently wrong. Make hay while the sun shines and if I am forced to buy a replacement power supply (a largely commodity item, at least) or a whole replacement when it breaks for good my first night in Latin America so be it.

0033 Uploading some photos. Booked hotel in Amritsar and spent ages writing tripadvisor reviews. Sore throat evidently has a tendency to flare up at night, it isn't that bad but still. Didn't buy any water today, last night and tonight have filled a litre bottle from tap and used a water purification tablet. (I used last night's to make some cold green tea with my last teabag, tonight's is a reserve - it takes 30 mins for tablet to work so need to do it before run out of safe water - but will use it to clean teeth etc to conserve non-chlorine-tasting water for drinking. The green tea masked the taste great, incidentally. If only shops where I might buy such things as teabags weren't like hen's teeth in India.)

Should move towards bed but not being picked up til 1030 and I won't sleep easily with this sore throat so no rush yet, wait til I feel more tired.

0149 FFS, should go to bed. But not mega tired. Been rather pointlessly filling in all the 'missing' (because I never reviewed anything there) places I've been on tripadvisor. This increases their '% of the world travelled' figure for me from 5% to 13%. It also means I can see a nice map of the world with pins where I've been; man, if I didn't already realise it, this would show how little of India I've seen. Also inevitably reminds me of Mitch Hedberg: I'd like to get a map of the world and stick pins in it to show where I've been. But first I'd have to travel to the two top corners of the map to stop it falling off the wall.

0200 FFS, better go to bed and hope I fall asleep, it is probably more likely once I am in bed. Need to remember to notice how nice it is not to have a sore throat once this is over.