Just wanted to mention how much fun it was going to Spanish Film Festival hosted at Prasads multiplex by Moving Image and Casa De La India among others. It was a 3 day film festival started with Friday night showing Miguel and William, pretty nice romantic comedy.
Saturday morning they screen the 13 Roses, which probably tops on my list of most tragic and yet interesting delivered stories along with another one which I missed and have no idea about.
Sunday morning the movies screen were again amazing, The Habition de Fermat (Fermat's room), Siete mesas de billar frances (7 billiards tables) and The Oxford Murders. [ A more detailed post here.
The response was amazing with the normal hall being almost full and requiring them to screen the last movie in IMAX hall. The music between the movies was amazing, I am glad I was able to find it by email-ing to the organizers :) The music I liked the most was Ay! de mi by Antonio carmonas and Mala Rodrigue. Seems like other music tracks were also by Antonio Carmonas.
Thank you all the organizers and sponsors, hope to see another movie festival soon.
BTW, the publicity of the event was not up to the marks, I wonder how we got to know of it only by chance. Would be nice to popularize such events online by going to social networks.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sunday, March 08, 2009
San Diego trip
The blog post comes 6 weeks after the trip but its been one great trip that I must write about.
San Diego(SD) is around 8 hrs away from Mountain View, CA. I didn't find enough interest amount friends to drive all the way, but for me SD was one places waiting to be visiting since long. My previous attempt last year failed as friends decided to spend both days of weekend at Los Angeles instead of driving further to SD. In terms of drivers I was the only one luckily we figured out that Vatsa was in Santa Monica and was willing to drive to and fro SD from there and so we started.
After getting some expert advice about saving driving time and trouble with traffic we decided to leave just after dinner on Friday, which with some delay ended up being 10:30 PM. Luckily we got a GPS for the trip. Santa Monica our first destination was 5 hrs and 30 minutes away. With some irresistible stops at rest areas because of drowiness we finally reached SM by 4:30 AM. SM to SD is just a 2hrs and 30 minutes distance and we left from SM by 9:00 to reach the Sea World by around 11:30 AM.
Sea world at San Diego is amoung the most famour theme parks. Mostly because of the Dolphin shows there. Shamu is the name of the most famous Dolphon there and probably in the world too. There were around 7 shows on the schedule most of them repeat every one hour. The rides are pretty much continuous but close by 7:00 PM. We were able to catch almost all the shows. The dolphin show was the major attraction and was amoung the best performances I have seen and of course the Dolphin performed the most of it but their trainers were also a major part of the wonderful show. Other great things to see include Sea World aquarium, the 4 D show. We also had a couple of rides. There is a kinda conclusive show at 7:00 PM which is called "Shamu takes you around the world or something" which is a beautiful light and sound show along with the Dolphin stunts :)
The plan to walk around the downtown in the evening didn't work as it was raining quite heavily and findind parking in SD turned out to be as hard as it is in San Francisco. We went to a restaurant Maxican near North SD. The complimentory nachos were mouth watering tasty and so was the Quesidilla, but the most interesting thing was the "Grande Margarita" drink which they say was originated here and became famous all over the world.
The next day we head a couple of things to do. The SD zoo, the beaches (surfing) and the La Jolla. It turned out the rain has turned off the option for surfing. We decided to go the zoo and I it was pretty mch worth spending the 4-5 hrs there. Among the rare animals to see there are Kangaroes, Kwalas, Hippos, Penguins and Bears. The place also hosts variety of birds and other typicall animals like buffaloes, zebras, jiraffes, tigers and so on. What I found different in this zoo was that most animal weren't kept in completely closed cabins, instead they were kept in mostly open ones. I remember reading somewhere in the zoo that they keep the animal in completely close cabins only for sometime in the begining till they get used to the new environment, interesting!
After this we went to see La Jolla, which is a very scenic place famous for the sunset view. The beach at La Jolla indeed gives a very beautiful view at sunset. The waves at SD were also pretty big compared to those I have seen around Santa Cruz, It was clear that SD happens to be a big surfing spot.
The return jouney was also done in the same split manner and it turned out pretty well in the end but for the last 60 miles where it became almost impossible to drive and we had to pull over almost 3 times. It all turned was all good. A big long 1100 miles on a 2 day fun filled weekend.
San Diego(SD) is around 8 hrs away from Mountain View, CA. I didn't find enough interest amount friends to drive all the way, but for me SD was one places waiting to be visiting since long. My previous attempt last year failed as friends decided to spend both days of weekend at Los Angeles instead of driving further to SD. In terms of drivers I was the only one luckily we figured out that Vatsa was in Santa Monica and was willing to drive to and fro SD from there and so we started.
 |
| From San Diego trip |
 |
| From San Diego trip |
After getting some expert advice about saving driving time and trouble with traffic we decided to leave just after dinner on Friday, which with some delay ended up being 10:30 PM. Luckily we got a GPS for the trip. Santa Monica our first destination was 5 hrs and 30 minutes away. With some irresistible stops at rest areas because of drowiness we finally reached SM by 4:30 AM. SM to SD is just a 2hrs and 30 minutes distance and we left from SM by 9:00 to reach the Sea World by around 11:30 AM.
 |
| From San Diego trip |
Sea world at San Diego is amoung the most famour theme parks. Mostly because of the Dolphin shows there. Shamu is the name of the most famous Dolphon there and probably in the world too. There were around 7 shows on the schedule most of them repeat every one hour. The rides are pretty much continuous but close by 7:00 PM. We were able to catch almost all the shows. The dolphin show was the major attraction and was amoung the best performances I have seen and of course the Dolphin performed the most of it but their trainers were also a major part of the wonderful show. Other great things to see include Sea World aquarium, the 4 D show. We also had a couple of rides. There is a kinda conclusive show at 7:00 PM which is called "Shamu takes you around the world or something" which is a beautiful light and sound show along with the Dolphin stunts :)
 |
| From San Diego trip |
 |
| From San Diego trip |
 |
| From San Diego trip |
 |
| From San Diego trip |
The plan to walk around the downtown in the evening didn't work as it was raining quite heavily and findind parking in SD turned out to be as hard as it is in San Francisco. We went to a restaurant Maxican near North SD. The complimentory nachos were mouth watering tasty and so was the Quesidilla, but the most interesting thing was the "Grande Margarita" drink which they say was originated here and became famous all over the world.
The next day we head a couple of things to do. The SD zoo, the beaches (surfing) and the La Jolla. It turned out the rain has turned off the option for surfing. We decided to go the zoo and I it was pretty mch worth spending the 4-5 hrs there. Among the rare animals to see there are Kangaroes, Kwalas, Hippos, Penguins and Bears. The place also hosts variety of birds and other typicall animals like buffaloes, zebras, jiraffes, tigers and so on. What I found different in this zoo was that most animal weren't kept in completely closed cabins, instead they were kept in mostly open ones. I remember reading somewhere in the zoo that they keep the animal in completely close cabins only for sometime in the begining till they get used to the new environment, interesting!
 |
| From San Diego trip |
After this we went to see La Jolla, which is a very scenic place famous for the sunset view. The beach at La Jolla indeed gives a very beautiful view at sunset. The waves at SD were also pretty big compared to those I have seen around Santa Cruz, It was clear that SD happens to be a big surfing spot.
 |
| From San Diego trip |
The return jouney was also done in the same split manner and it turned out pretty well in the end but for the last 60 miles where it became almost impossible to drive and we had to pull over almost 3 times. It all turned was all good. A big long 1100 miles on a 2 day fun filled weekend.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Backpacking around Europe Part 2 (Getting around)
As usual I was lazy to do a proper study of how to prepare for the trip, but I did check out some c stuff browsing the internet for around 4-5 hrs in total to figure out the basics of traveling in Europe. If you want a quick conclusion after the real experience, jump to the travel by planes section below.
Travel by Trains
Based on previous discussion with various people, I had concluded that I needed Eurorail pass to have efficient travel, I did some research on eurorail and decided to go for a 15 days Euro Global youth pass. The plus points I saw were
1) Unlimited travel to around 15 countries for 15 consecutive days, alowing me to postpone my planning of travel to a further later time (laziness has no limits)
2) The cost difference to the 3 or 5 countries select pass 15 consecutive days pass was pretty small and then Open Source conference participation was going to re-imburse some part of my travel
3) The other pass was for 2 months period with 10/12/15 etc days of travel, I found it no too effective for my case (which as I talk below might now be always true).
The website and the terms and conditions book that you get with the pass leaves some doubts in you mind which I tried figuring out over the net but couldn't for e.g The book says having euro pass doesn't confirm you a seat, you need to reserve your seats by going to the ticket window or through the conductor before boarding the train.
As I traveled around I figure out most of these things. Much as I as I understand here is how you use the pass:
1) For most short distance trains, like 1-2 hrs of travel mostly intercity trains, you don't need reservation (this is pretty much mentioned in train timetable if you get one from raileurope)
2) For most trains more than 3 hrs reservation is needed. Most trains have two Seats and berths for a night journey you might rather take a berth than a seat. Now in both seats and berths there is class 1 and class 2. Like business and economy, I usual the price difference is similar up to 3 times, I always traveled by economy (so do most tourists).
Reservations is similar to buying a ticket, so you may end up in long queue which should be avoided because you bought the pass but no such luck. Believe me each customer ends up taking 5-6 minutes on an average for buying a ticket. One alternative however is that you to do the train conductor and ask him for reservation. This turns out to be slightly costlier than buying it on the ticket window but saves loads of your time. My train from Paris to Nice ville for e.g I had to go through this option and I got a berth reservation for 20 Euros, while the Seat was free or 5 Euros (I don't recall)
3) Many students in Italy traveled by just hopping on the train and then sitting on the side seats instead of compartment seats. These seats aren't numbered so if you have them, you can sit without any problems, but every time someone pass by the corridor you are required to stand up. Nevertheless these seats are sometimes the best way to watch the scenery outside and you don't need a reservation for them.
4) Now about reservation costs for most long journeys you pay around 15 Euros with the pass for a seat, the cost for a berth various between 20-3o Euros. As per my conclusion journeys across countries are usually costly. When I inquired ticket cost from Rome to Barcelona I was given the number 85 Euros (only option) with pass. The cost for a night train from Rome to Munich however was 9 Euros for seat and 27 for berth. I am not very sure if my tickets included the 18-25 age advantage or not, I somehow feel they didn't because someone told me later that berths were cheaper for them.
Travel by Planes (the more economic option)
Sometime during the middle of trip I was told that I wasn't traveling the most efficient way. I didn't really change it during the trip but It should be important for next one.
Train aren't really the cheapest transport mechanism planes are. Now if you go look at any flight cost on the travel websites they are pretty harsh like 600$ from Paris to Genoa or Milan, but turns out that there are indeed low-cost airlines which operate at unimaginably cheap rates like 30 Euros between most cities e.g Rome to Barcelona was 30 Euros. One of the most popular once is ryanair.com. I forgot the name of the other one.
Traveling by Ferries:
Some countries (Italy, Spain and Greece) are well connected by Ferries. I initially planned to use my Free Italy to Greece ferry offer with my eurorail pass but some friends told about their horrible experience with the same and I quickly decided to avoid it. Seemingly unless you take a cabin you are gonna hate this experience. Reserving a cabin is like 60 Euros. So you should figure out the cost clearly before planning. As per my friends "traveling for 14-22 hours amid high winds and cold breeze sitting on an not so comfortable seat isn't the best experience of your life".
Traveling within Cities
Most cities are very well connected by public transport like buses or Metros. Paris metro is probably pretty famous through the movies already. Venice is pretty well known to be connected by Ferries and buses where ever both of them run. Rome and Florence has great bus service, though I found it rather easier to walk around the whole city on foot. In fact, I went from Rome train station to Vatican city and came back walking involving around 2-3 hrs of real walking time. Most youth hostels are pretty close to the train stations. In fact except for Aloha hostel in Paris I don't remember taking public transport to any other youth hostel. Amsterdam's trams are pretty nice and useful for going across the city from train station if you don't like walking for 30-40 minutes oneway. In Paris, Munich and Amsterdam I took Sandeman's new Europe free city tours which are always by walking and which are a great way to explore the city with other travelers. In short:
Paris: Take a metro train pass for 7 Euros a day or walk around, renting a bike is option too.
Munich, Rome, Florence, Pisa: Walking around the city is easy.
Amsterdam: 1 Euro ticket goes active for 1 hour in any public transport, walking is easy too, many ppl rather rent bikes, as per my guide, be sure to look them carefully :)
Venice: The ferry pass was 12 Euros for 24 hours (IIRC) a good deal. You definitely need to take ferry for going around.
Travel by Trains
Based on previous discussion with various people, I had concluded that I needed Eurorail pass to have efficient travel, I did some research on eurorail and decided to go for a 15 days Euro Global youth pass. The plus points I saw were
1) Unlimited travel to around 15 countries for 15 consecutive days, alowing me to postpone my planning of travel to a further later time (laziness has no limits)
2) The cost difference to the 3 or 5 countries select pass 15 consecutive days pass was pretty small and then Open Source conference participation was going to re-imburse some part of my travel
3) The other pass was for 2 months period with 10/12/15 etc days of travel, I found it no too effective for my case (which as I talk below might now be always true).
The website and the terms and conditions book that you get with the pass leaves some doubts in you mind which I tried figuring out over the net but couldn't for e.g The book says having euro pass doesn't confirm you a seat, you need to reserve your seats by going to the ticket window or through the conductor before boarding the train.
As I traveled around I figure out most of these things. Much as I as I understand here is how you use the pass:
1) For most short distance trains, like 1-2 hrs of travel mostly intercity trains, you don't need reservation (this is pretty much mentioned in train timetable if you get one from raileurope)
2) For most trains more than 3 hrs reservation is needed. Most trains have two Seats and berths for a night journey you might rather take a berth than a seat. Now in both seats and berths there is class 1 and class 2. Like business and economy, I usual the price difference is similar up to 3 times, I always traveled by economy (so do most tourists).
Reservations is similar to buying a ticket, so you may end up in long queue which should be avoided because you bought the pass but no such luck. Believe me each customer ends up taking 5-6 minutes on an average for buying a ticket. One alternative however is that you to do the train conductor and ask him for reservation. This turns out to be slightly costlier than buying it on the ticket window but saves loads of your time. My train from Paris to Nice ville for e.g I had to go through this option and I got a berth reservation for 20 Euros, while the Seat was free or 5 Euros (I don't recall)
3) Many students in Italy traveled by just hopping on the train and then sitting on the side seats instead of compartment seats. These seats aren't numbered so if you have them, you can sit without any problems, but every time someone pass by the corridor you are required to stand up. Nevertheless these seats are sometimes the best way to watch the scenery outside and you don't need a reservation for them.
4) Now about reservation costs for most long journeys you pay around 15 Euros with the pass for a seat, the cost for a berth various between 20-3o Euros. As per my conclusion journeys across countries are usually costly. When I inquired ticket cost from Rome to Barcelona I was given the number 85 Euros (only option) with pass. The cost for a night train from Rome to Munich however was 9 Euros for seat and 27 for berth. I am not very sure if my tickets included the 18-25 age advantage or not, I somehow feel they didn't because someone told me later that berths were cheaper for them.
Travel by Planes (the more economic option)
Sometime during the middle of trip I was told that I wasn't traveling the most efficient way. I didn't really change it during the trip but It should be important for next one.
Train aren't really the cheapest transport mechanism planes are. Now if you go look at any flight cost on the travel websites they are pretty harsh like 600$ from Paris to Genoa or Milan, but turns out that there are indeed low-cost airlines which operate at unimaginably cheap rates like 30 Euros between most cities e.g Rome to Barcelona was 30 Euros. One of the most popular once is ryanair.com. I forgot the name of the other one.
Traveling by Ferries:
Some countries (Italy, Spain and Greece) are well connected by Ferries. I initially planned to use my Free Italy to Greece ferry offer with my eurorail pass but some friends told about their horrible experience with the same and I quickly decided to avoid it. Seemingly unless you take a cabin you are gonna hate this experience. Reserving a cabin is like 60 Euros. So you should figure out the cost clearly before planning. As per my friends "traveling for 14-22 hours amid high winds and cold breeze sitting on an not so comfortable seat isn't the best experience of your life".
Traveling within Cities
Most cities are very well connected by public transport like buses or Metros. Paris metro is probably pretty famous through the movies already. Venice is pretty well known to be connected by Ferries and buses where ever both of them run. Rome and Florence has great bus service, though I found it rather easier to walk around the whole city on foot. In fact, I went from Rome train station to Vatican city and came back walking involving around 2-3 hrs of real walking time. Most youth hostels are pretty close to the train stations. In fact except for Aloha hostel in Paris I don't remember taking public transport to any other youth hostel. Amsterdam's trams are pretty nice and useful for going across the city from train station if you don't like walking for 30-40 minutes oneway. In Paris, Munich and Amsterdam I took Sandeman's new Europe free city tours which are always by walking and which are a great way to explore the city with other travelers. In short:
Paris: Take a metro train pass for 7 Euros a day or walk around, renting a bike is option too.
Munich, Rome, Florence, Pisa: Walking around the city is easy.
Amsterdam: 1 Euro ticket goes active for 1 hour in any public transport, walking is easy too, many ppl rather rent bikes, as per my guide, be sure to look them carefully :)
Venice: The ferry pass was 12 Euros for 24 hours (IIRC) a good deal. You definitely need to take ferry for going around.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Backpacking around Europe Part 1 (Tourist Visa process)
At last here is the series of post of my first Europe Trip during the September and November this year.
As I had thought about earlier, if you go on a business trip through your company to US from India it makes a sensible choice to think about taking a stopover at Europe. I had thought about this during my second trip that I will definitely do it during the next one. As its well known travelling as youth ( below 26 years of age) has its own advantages.
I had little time to apply for Visa as the trip came up as urgency but various sources of information told that 5-7 days should be enough for a visa. Here are some (hard learned) realities (All info is about Schengen Visa applied at French Embassy in Mumbai) :
0) The main thing, almost all countries Visa office now issue Schengen visa for Tourists. This means once you get a visa you can travel freely between 22 nations. Usually you need to apply for Visa of the country where you gonna spent maximum number of days (This point is slightly elaborated in 5)
1) A Tourist Visa isn't as simple a deal, the big list of documents that I had to submitted included:
Hotel reservation proofs, No object letter and covering letter from Employer, Payslips for past 6 months, Income tax returns for past 3 years (I submitted 2 that I had worked for), return tickets printout, Medical Insurance proof, Two photograph white background 35 x 45 80% face, Visa Form, Credit card copy and of course a valid Passport.
2) The French Embassy in India didn't give me Visa based on these documents alone, they schedule an appointment date 6 days after submission of my application (due to high number of pending applications)
3) The interview process is pretty much similar to a B1 visa for US. The consulate tries to ensure that your documents are your intents are real and not harmful. You have to appear in Person for this interview, I had to visit the Nariman Point Visa office.
4) They issued the Visa the same day in a matter of 30-40 minutes after the interview.
5) On entry to France, they put the date of entry on my passport. The Visa was a 15 days, multiple entry, I guess based on the documents I provided (my plan showed I wished staying for 11 days and had insurance for 21 days and had slightly flexible requirements of date as my US return trip dates weren't fixed yet).
As much as I understand you would need to exit from the same Airport as they will have to put the exit stamp.
Against the general impression and opinions I heard from others, the Embassy isn't sitting there to solely reject the visa requests, they were pretty cooperative and in no sense non-welcoming. I was not really questioned about why I requested Multiple Entry (which I still don't know :D)
Oh, btw the Tourist visa was valid for a duration of 2 months, but 15 days in one trip, as against the usual notion that they will give very restrictive visa according to your itinerary, I guess explaining them that my US travel was flexible helped.
As I had thought about earlier, if you go on a business trip through your company to US from India it makes a sensible choice to think about taking a stopover at Europe. I had thought about this during my second trip that I will definitely do it during the next one. As its well known travelling as youth ( below 26 years of age) has its own advantages.
I had little time to apply for Visa as the trip came up as urgency but various sources of information told that 5-7 days should be enough for a visa. Here are some (hard learned) realities (All info is about Schengen Visa applied at French Embassy in Mumbai) :
0) The main thing, almost all countries Visa office now issue Schengen visa for Tourists. This means once you get a visa you can travel freely between 22 nations. Usually you need to apply for Visa of the country where you gonna spent maximum number of days (This point is slightly elaborated in 5)
1) A Tourist Visa isn't as simple a deal, the big list of documents that I had to submitted included:
Hotel reservation proofs, No object letter and covering letter from Employer, Payslips for past 6 months, Income tax returns for past 3 years (I submitted 2 that I had worked for), return tickets printout, Medical Insurance proof, Two photograph white background 35 x 45 80% face, Visa Form, Credit card copy and of course a valid Passport.
2) The French Embassy in India didn't give me Visa based on these documents alone, they schedule an appointment date 6 days after submission of my application (due to high number of pending applications)
3) The interview process is pretty much similar to a B1 visa for US. The consulate tries to ensure that your documents are your intents are real and not harmful. You have to appear in Person for this interview, I had to visit the Nariman Point Visa office.
4) They issued the Visa the same day in a matter of 30-40 minutes after the interview.
5) On entry to France, they put the date of entry on my passport. The Visa was a 15 days, multiple entry, I guess based on the documents I provided (my plan showed I wished staying for 11 days and had insurance for 21 days and had slightly flexible requirements of date as my US return trip dates weren't fixed yet).
As much as I understand you would need to exit from the same Airport as they will have to put the exit stamp.
Against the general impression and opinions I heard from others, the Embassy isn't sitting there to solely reject the visa requests, they were pretty cooperative and in no sense non-welcoming. I was not really questioned about why I requested Multiple Entry (which I still don't know :D)
Oh, btw the Tourist visa was valid for a duration of 2 months, but 15 days in one trip, as against the usual notion that they will give very restrictive visa according to your itinerary, I guess explaining them that my US travel was flexible helped.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
A train trip to Lucknow (on Abhishek's wedding)
It was Abhishek Dixit's wedding on 29th November, 2008 that led a trip to Lucknow. The trip didn't add much to my tourist knowledge of the place but I learned quite some things about train travel. The prices for flights had gone up so horribly high that I decided to travel by train. Fortunately the sanity in flight prices is back. The Tax has decreased by 1,400 Rupees in past week making the ticket cost more reasonable once again.
So the train journey started with Gorakhpur express from Hyderbad. This time the good thing was that I made it to the train in sufficient time in advance, something I have almost not done since long. The train seemed to have a almost perfect timing all the way till Bhopal and "just" 1 hr delay at Jhansi, but then I got reminded of the old days of delayed train again. The train kept stopping at every random station for uncalled amount of time and eventually reached the destination Lucknow at 2:00 PM instead of 9:30 AM.
I must say I was surprised to see the city contradictory to my preconcieved notion about the city being part of a state which has been politically exploited based on caste politics. I had heard that parties whenever they came to power used to bring down old statues and errect new ones wasting loads of public money. Not having seen statues at every junction I felt relieved to know
that my information wasn't correct. But wait, the junctions all had lavish water fountains and should have been a big waste of construction and maintenence money, water and electricity anyways.Then I was pointed to one statue on the left of the road, it was Mr. Ambedkar's. I was told that he is the only person whose statues get put at every place and that I found true within next 2-3 Kms. Other than that the City indeed looks pretty developed seeing the flyovers and broad roads.
The original plan was Sandeep and team would be coming from Delhi and we would go sight seeing around but they couldn't make it because of not getting their seats in the train out of waiting list and also not being allowed to take a taxy out of city boundaries due to some rule of Election commision to "Seal" the boundary of state during election, another seem
ingly stupid rule. Arvind and Sreejith did make it to the wedding being in IIML also Piyush Bhargav came.The marriage had all the traditional north Indian wedding stuff like Baraat walking with a band playing some famous songs, some of us dancing and also some fireworks on the way. Something that was different from the wedding in MP was that the Dullah came in a car all the way to the venue instead of coming on a horse. The dinner was pretty good and I found it pretty much similar to the one we have at weddings in MP. After the dinner was over there were some private/family events including the Pheras that went on over the night again another similarity.
I had an early morning train n
ext day. The train started on a bad note with a delay of 2 hrs, keeping me worried if I will catch my connecting train from Allahabad. I came to know later that my choice of train the Nauchandi express was a bad one. I should have rather taken an intercity train which people say is much better in maintaining timings.My train kept adding more and more delay so instead of reaching Allahabad at scheduled time of 9:55 AM I reached at 2:10 PM. At once the train was at a station 5 KMs or so away from Allahabad for approximately 30 minutes. Someone knowledgable proposed us leaving the train and taking an auto rickshaw to avoid wasting another 30 minutes as this train waits for another train to cross. I was interested because I could have caught my connecting train, some others had a appointment at the (Army?) office at 1 PM.
Turns out that despite the delay of 2 hrs my connecting train left the station before I could reach it. I came to know some interesting stuff about trains:
1) If my ticket was a normal ticket (not an e-ticket), the station superintendent could have given me a seat in another train based on availability without me going through pains of cancelling this ticket and reissuing another.
2) Even with my e-ticket, I could still claim my refund for this ticket because I missed the train because of the delay and I had PNR numbers of connecting ticket.
3) You can buy a general ticket when reservation is not available and contact the TT to get you a seat in Sleeper category. The TT issues a "panelty" reciept for 320 Rs for the distance from Allahabad to Jabalpur and I could use that along with my general ticket worth 87 Rs to travel. Effectively paying 400 Rs instead of may be 300 Rs ticket.
The journey from Jabalpur to Hyderabad was much more peaceful with no major delays or hiccups. As I understand it train delays are a thing of past for many places in India but not for UP still, be careful about giving ample extra timings between your trains and reserve extra time for the delays in your plans.
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