The money-grubbers of Gwalior

After a successful visit to Agra I decided to travel to Gwalior. All my travel books sang its praise and as Gwalior was on the route to Orchha I thought nothing could go wrong. That things would turn out to be different from what I'd planned is something I've grown used to lately, but what happened today was again a new experience. It started again on the train. I could only buy a second class ticket. This is really the cheapest and most uncomfortable way of travelling. You just don't want to do this. However, there's a solution for everything - especially when you're a tourist. You just get inside the so-called sleeper class (for which you need to make a reservation), ask the conductor if he has still got room for you and you pay him the difference. Sounds wonderful again in theory; in practice it is a good example of how corruption prevails here. What is the story? You sit down somewhere on the train and, when asked to show your ticket, you explain everything to the conductor. He promises to find you another place. Unfortunately, this seemed to go wrong in my case because the person who checks the conductor got wind of this. The problem was solved by allocating another seat to me (yes, it's all very logical!). When we arrived at Gwalior station I was notified of this and I had to pay 50 rupiahs, which went straight into the conductor's pocket. 'Have a nice day' - and he was gone. Isn't it simple, travelling in India?
Good-humoured I walked out of the station on my way to the hotel I'd picked. It was already around 11:00am and it had again become very hot. The hotel was also further away than I'd imagined, so it was a bit of a tough walk. Finally I reached the hotel. The service was undescribably rude. I was treated as if I were some worthless insect, but I had a look at the rooms anyway. They charged too much for the rooms, so I started haggling. It was not possible, the prices were fixed. Could I take a look at another room? Well, I could, but only with some effort. This other room seemed to be alright. But after I had completed all the forms, it turned out that this room was twice as expensive! I became furious; almost climbed over the desk and tore the form to pieces. Now it was the receptionist's turn to become very angry. Which was only logical, for administration is holy in India and everything should be there to be shown to the government. I only realised this too well. He put a cross through the form, but for me that was not sufficient. I grabbed the piece of paper from his hands and crossed out my signature so hard that the three sheets underneath were compeletely torn to bits, too. Then I picked up my rucksack and left. For a moment I was totally fed up with India!!!

The other hotel was next to the station, so I had to walk all the way back (arggggh!). Here there were also fixed prices, so I had to pay for a double room as there weren't any single rooms left ('Stay calm!'). That very moment I decided I would stay in Gwalior for only 1 day and not a minute longer! I spent the afternoon looking at a museum and fortress at a high speed. They were interesting enough, but not what I had expected them to be. For the rest I paid the maximum prices for everything and everything 'because Gwalior is a big city'. And if you ask me if this big city had anything to offer: No, it hadn't. The following day I woke up early to catch the train to Jhansi. And guess what? I got on a stopping train! Do you know what this means over here? Four hours on a steaming hot train, while it would take the express service only 1.5 hours! And over here 'stopping train' also means: standing still for an hour in the middle of nowhere so that all express and freight trains can pass. Just try to remain calm in a reasonably crowded train. Do you know what the worst part of it is? First, that you cannot change a thing about it and secondly, that there's only one person to blame. And that is yourself!