The longest train journey of my life

Day 3

I'm writing from the top bunk of our sleeper train cabin. It's midday and we are still not sure when we will reach Varanasi, all I know is the pace is extremely slow, and the fog does not seem to be lifting. We have now been on the train for 14 hours, and it's quite possible we might be in store for another four or more. I think the train did not actually leave Delhi until 2:00 am, although we boarded at 10:30pm... It's hard to tell as I was at least sound asleep!

I must say we have met some interesting people in our short time here, and have definitely had assistance from some wonderfully helpful Indian people. There have also been some strange ones...While still at the train station I was checking the departures board and was approached by an elderly smiling Indian man who shook my hand and tried to converse with me, but whose English was so limited that very little was possible. After a while I noticed his dress: a ladies embroidered Indian top, and a floral type silk scarf wrapped around his head... He was also filthy and barefoot. I politely said goodbye and went back to Werner. Unfortunately he followed me and proceeded to try to chat to Werner, while I didn't have that much patience for him. He was obviously a bit touched... But when we mentioned we needed to go soon, he shook our hands again, and went through onto the train platform without bothering us again.

Once we finally made it to the crowded platform we found a spot for ourselves to stand and read and wait for the train. At one point, a whole crowd of people all got up and tried to stand exactly where I was sitting on my bag... I got quite annoyed, but a friendly Indian student behind us motioned for us to move backward, and we noticed that the crowd were forming a queue - for the lower class cabins I guessed. We chatted a bit to the student and his two friends, all studying Engineering and perfectly fluent in English. The one lady said she was going to the work for Tata Consultancy Services, and I told her it is an excellent company to work for. The young guy was so sweet, he said he felt it was his duty as an Indian to try and help foreigners, and even offered to meet up with us on the train and assist us in getting food, but we declined, saying we would manage.
The train finally arrived and we boarded and met a young Chinese couple, and an Indian lady traveling with her mother and young son. The lady's husband was getting off at Delhi, but before he left he made sure he helped us travelers find our cabins. The Chinese ended up staying with the Indian lady and her mother and son, while we ended up sharing with an Indian husband and wife, who we initially found to be quite rude, as they talked loudly, snored loudly and sniffed and hacked even more loudly, whilst completely ignoring us. We later chatted a bit to the lady, who it turns out was from Varanasi, but was working as a Hindi teacher in Oman. She advised us that we still had a long wait ahead of us...
When we woke in the morning, around 9:00, we took a walk to see if the Chinese and their cabin mates were awake. They were and we shared a coffee and a chat with them. On our way back to our bunks, we found the breakfast vendor, and decided to brave the day's offering - the one was two pieces of bread with omlette, the other the bread with a fried potato-veg cake, much like an Indian hashbrown. The hashbrown thing was yummy, and the omlette not bad, although I narrowly missed biting into a huge piece of green chilli in it! We declined lunch as we didn't want to push our luck, but when a guy came past selling chips and biscuits, I told Werner to grab him. He came back with a huge stash of snacks, funnily enough the only flavour of chips they had was a masala so we munched on that and hope it lasts us til we get there.

I am now quite worried about the train ride from Varanasi to Agra, but I guess we don't have much choice and will have to go with the flow. At least having a bunk is a lot better than sitting in a cramped airline seat, you can sleep quite nicely or sit and read or write.

I haven't mentioned the weather yet - Sunil was right and it's pretty cold! I'm really glad to have my jeans and fleece jacket, and was glad to have a blanket last night. Who would have thought we'd be cold in India!



- Nix


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Location:Train between Delhi and Varanasi