Chandigarh, Monday

1204 Woke on alarm at 11. Been faffing around since. Going to go out for food soon but also need to pick a train out so I can book up and avoid problems. I will go to Delhi late on Wednesday - I know the area near the train station and will stay in Paharganj so late arrival not a big deal. Two full days there perhaps not ideal but maybe it will be less hellish with the experience so far under my belt.

OK, if I can get on it I want CC on train 12012 Kalka Shtbdi dep 1823 arr 2155 on 18 Dec. It probably costs 735 and shows availability for CC right now, so if I go to the bus terminal (where there is apparently a railway reservation office, and hopefully cash machines) after lunch (handily a place in guidebook is just round corner) that will probably be OK.

Let's go ask for key at reception...

1243 At Tehal Singh's Dhaba, not just round corner (that place freaked me out, the dining area was a room with all chairs up on tables, in the end a chap came out of kitchen - which has no access except via street - and said it was open but I went in again and doubled back out). Bit weird here too but it is in guide book and seems OK. Half chicken kadhai boneless (*meat*!!!) with jeera rice and a plain naan and a diet coke. Got some cash at machine near here. Need to pop back to hotel (which is more or less en route, but still annoying) before go to bus terminal as I forgot to bring my pen out to fill the form in for the ticket reservation.

City so far seems weird, the streets are v wide and buildings - "no, no mineral water, just the coke" so the guy gives me a mineral water, meh, can leave rest at hotel on way back so won't go to waste and price virtually same as in a shop - v low rise. It isn't mega clean but I suppose it is relatively so. I think the guide book did Amritsar a disservice saying iirc it was hopelessly noisy, dirty and overcrowded, it didn't seem any worse than anywhere else I've been.

I am wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt which is fine on street (weather forecast is 25Cish, though getting down to 15 or so at night) but the a/c in here is a touch fierce.

1538 At bus terminal, finally found well-hidden railway reservation office. Sign lower down says 'eve teasing' is a crime, must look that up. (A restaurant en route had sign saying "couples kitty party", ditto.)

1653 Back at hotel. Feeling slightly rumblings in guts but fingers crossed nothing too serious. Seen a few bars nearby, may go out for a beer later, we'll see.

2031 So help me God, I am at Peddlers "Under The Big Ben". Old British comedy album covers all over the menu (including bizarrely 'Monty Python Los Mejores Sketches'). Mambo No 5 playing. Not sure how well I am, guts feel a bit hollow and I had a second (if reasonably solid - yay for personal details) shit back at hotel. But fuck it. I guess I am also just recovering from this sore throat/cold and it is also a touch cool. Frankly I don't like the atmosphere much but apart from "Robin's bar" which was darkly intimidating down a side street, the other places I passed looked either a bit swanky or restauranty. I am not really feeling like a second meal, if anyone ever comes to take my order I will just have some hot & sour soup and a draught Kingfisher.

I got my train ticket OK by the way, been back at hotel, did a tiny bit of laundry and some minor purchases. Need to check seat availability on return flight and decide if I am going to spring for a reserved seat (assuming it isn't already too late to get an aisle seat) or wait til i can pick one for free 24h before flight. Also need to book my flight for Jan - have one in my eye from experimentation other night. Basically the only moderately cheap option is to fly to Buenos Aires. (Based on fiddling with return flights, this may not even be hugely affected by having left it so late, the return flights weren't cheap either though I did less exploation with them.) Since I need a return flight (ie just a flight back, not strictly a return back from the same place I fly into) booked as a condition of my travel insurance I am looking at a return flight (in the London to X then X to London sense, since this is way cheaper than two singles) to BA with Aerolineas Europa (Spanish airline) via Madrid for about £650 return with half-decent flight durations and departure times. Single was about 500-550 and a single to just about anywhere else was weighing in at 800-1000 or more. (There was one ultra cheap flight to New York via Manchester UK which could have been combined with an onward flight from there - superficially flying NY to elsewhere on continent is cheap as chips, eg 120 quid to El Salvador - but not sure how the return flight would have panned out, most NY flights not cheap so that deal was special, I would have to faff with visa waiver crap and also - especially when I would want to travel with clothes for the weather I expect in Latin America - a couple of days in New York in January don't massively appeal.)

That works quite well, insofar as I had any plan I was thinking of maybe visiting the southern reaches of the continent at local midsummer (so cool but not NY in January stuff), so I could head south from BA then back north up through Chile to call in at Santiago (must be visited, of course) and then northwards into the relatively unvisited parts (I haven't done much of Peru at all, and parts north are essentially untouched from my perspective). I would want to rough out a schedule before leaving but in terms of booking flights I am sure the BA option is reasonable. I'd probably want to 'end' with some time in Mexico but I don't anticipate big problems or expense getting a flight from Mexico down to BA to catch the return flight. BA isn't my favourite city but maybe one day I will actually crack it, and it's certainly pleasant enough to pass a few days in before flying home. I might take some 'internal' flights and at least one is mandatory if I want to visit Mexico/central America unless the Darien gap has been civilised since I last read anything about it. I have had the idea of travelling by cargo ship in my mind but haven't looked into it. I think for the transatlantic bit it's probably not a brilliant use of time even if it's possible. Just possibly Valparaiso to somewhere further up the same coastline might be an option.

E-mailed JR to check my proposed return date of 1st April is reasonable from a jobseeking perspective and he thinks it is.

Soup here now anyway.

Major confusion over drinks. Getting a glass (which may be tiny, but sod it) of Kingfisher draught. The options seem to be light or strong, and I don't want the strong. Attempts to determine what the light is like failed hugely, but sod it. It tastes OK anyway.

Oh, crossing the street outside hotel, traffic is OK but unless I accidentally cut through somewhere I shouldn't have, you end up walking under virtually unlit tree areas and tripping over piles of stones and climbing over small barriers to get back to the well-lit pavement outside the shops along the sides of the blocks proper. The city has a spacious and generally suburban feel but I'm not a huge fan so far.

Musically we have had EMF's Unbelievable, Everybody's Free (To Feel Good) and we now have Stereo MC's Connected, or we did, before it cut off for another play of Unbelievable. This is OK I guess. Maybe not very Indian but so be it. Feel a little better, it's not as if I was concretely ill before, just feeling a touch ropy. Music now skipping badly.

Also need to book hotel for Delhi tonight. Will probably stay where I did before if available, since at least it's a known quantity when I'm arriving fairly late at night. (I'd need to be sure you can check in that late, though.)

2124 Second beer. Feeling a bit funny. Think it's largely imagination but not pushing it. Got bill - 336 (soup was about 175 IIRC, so pricey, beer not too expensive), will try to make it 370ish. Was going to go to toilet but then I asked for bill as well and felt I couldn't then go (upstairs - this is in basement). Not too bad now. Honestly not sure there is anything wrong - I feel better now I know I can just leave. Left 50 tip due to way change panned out. OK, fuck it, feeling a bit edgy again now after drinking a bit more, I'm offski. It's 2128.

2146 Just got back to hotel. Except for slight 'twinge' once or twice I feel OK and as soon as I left I kind of regretted leaving that beer, also there was a chap with a guitar in one corner and while I probably wouldn't have stayed later might have been nice to hear some live music. But the place wasn't so fantastic by any stretch and as you can see it's a moderate walk from the hotel (I am not sure if I could get a tuktuk in a hurry, especially if I was feeling ill) and probably smart not to risk it. I was hoping to get through my time in Asia with no serious/food-related health issues. To be fair, maybe I have so far/will, I would be hard pushed to say there *is* anything seriously wrong at the moment, it's just natural caution, plus I am at the tail end of this cold/sore throat so perhaps feeling a little weak from that. (For example, I am fairly fine during the day, but nose a bit bunged up at times. Throad OK most of day but feels bit crap on waking and last night I was coughing quite a lot.) Anyway.

2246 Absolutely superb. The wifi now says 'invalid username or password' on the login screen. I note the shitty printout says it is valid for 24h. I went to reception who came back five minutes later with a new printout - this one valid for 2h, count 'em, two whole hours - and that gives exactly the same error. What a fucking crock of shit. Seriously not happy. I need to book my fucking hotel in Delhi, never mind looking into the flight seat reservation. I guess I can just hope it starts working - bwahahahaha - or failing that I can use my time tomorrow hunting for an internet cafe instead of going to the rock garden as I intended. Anything has to be better than the orgy of wifi use they'd have to put up with if they had a simple router and gave out the password. I for one would travel with at least 50 devices and set them all downloading continuously if I wasn't checked by the all-watchful power of iBerry Wifi Security, ensuring I get access via one device for as little time as possible and with maximum inconvenience. Since I also check in daily (if only via e-mail) with my parents back home lest some accident befall me, if this outage or just general incompetence continues I will be forced to pay extortionate roaming rates to send them a text. Total fucking shit.

2300 OK, I went to reception and got a third printout. This claims to be valid for 24h. Of course, IT STILL DOESN'T FUCKING WORK. I must say, I also just *love* interacting with these login web forms on a mobile phone browser. It's just so slick and convenient. (I am trying both the laptop and the phone, neither works.)