So, the train. This event deserves its own blog post.
Yesterday evening, we pulled up to the train station with our tour guide. I felt a bit of fear and great trepidation at the task ahead - a 14 hour train ride with conditions that seemed somewhat sketchy. Yeah, not what you want to hear when you are already sleep deprived and a little bit overwhelmed with India already. Our guide took us to the platform and we waited for our train. We waited, and waited, and waited. In the meantime, a nice gentleman named Paul from England approached us and asked us if we were by chance headed to Agra as well. We were and he was so relieved! He and his bride, Lauren, were soon introduced to us and were our new best friends! We discovered that we were on the same train in the same car in seats close to each other! All of a sudden, a brief panic ensued as our guide said that our train was moved to another platform. Jen and I started running up the ramp with our huge backpacks on back and our small ones on front - quite the sight to be seen! About 20 minutes later our train pulled in. :) We got on and our guide left and we surveyed the scene. There were probably about about 50 or more beds in our car which consisted of one bed below and one above with a drape over them. So basically you have an aisle and then beds and drapes all over. Kinda sketchy!!! Jen and I were so, so, so grateful to have Paul and Lauren. They are on their honeymoon and have been for the past 3 months, traveling to South America, Australia, Thailand, and finishing up here. They were truly lovely, kind, and hilarious people! We kept each other laughing!
So the bathroom situation on the train was grim. Indian toilets that deposited directly onto the tracks. Jen and I expected as much, but were truly grateful that we have been trained up at Rising Star to be able to handle these situations! And so we enforced our almost-dehydration diet! I ordered dinner on the train that cost about $0.80. It was some sort of potatoes with sauce and rice. It was okay, but nothing great. They served dinner at 9 p.m. and I went to dinner right after. That's when the fun began.....
The train stops every 30-60 minutes for about 10-15 minutes. Since we started off by being about 20 minutes late, we knew it would only get worse from there. As we tried to go to sleep, we were wonderfully situated right next to the door that everyone would use to enter our cabin and get to the restrooms. Awesome. Every time that the door would open, my backpack at my feet would slightly move, I would wake up in a panic thinking that someone was taking my bag, and then try to go back to "sleep". Sleep came and went, I would see dark shadows move past my drapes since I had the upper bunk and our curtains would be ripped open every now and then by the conductor to see if a body really was in the bed. Our train was supposed to arrive at 5:45 a.m., but we arrived 2 1/2 hours late!!!
The highlight of the morning was when I got up at 5 a.m. to use the facilities and I tried to climb back into my bed. Now, mind you, the ladder start at what feels like my ear and then there are only 3 steps up. Because it starts so far up, it is hard to not hit the wall and also swing your weight far over to the left to get onto the bed. I misstepped and accidentally landed with my foot on Jen's bed, to which I heard a large groan. Oh, poor Jen!
Trains in India - not so cool. As we were pulling into stations we saw nothing but tons and tons of garbage and so many people using the great outdoors as their bathroom I wanted to puke! Note to self - never walk on Indian railroad tracks.
Here's some footage of the train.....
Yesterday evening, we pulled up to the train station with our tour guide. I felt a bit of fear and great trepidation at the task ahead - a 14 hour train ride with conditions that seemed somewhat sketchy. Yeah, not what you want to hear when you are already sleep deprived and a little bit overwhelmed with India already. Our guide took us to the platform and we waited for our train. We waited, and waited, and waited. In the meantime, a nice gentleman named Paul from England approached us and asked us if we were by chance headed to Agra as well. We were and he was so relieved! He and his bride, Lauren, were soon introduced to us and were our new best friends! We discovered that we were on the same train in the same car in seats close to each other! All of a sudden, a brief panic ensued as our guide said that our train was moved to another platform. Jen and I started running up the ramp with our huge backpacks on back and our small ones on front - quite the sight to be seen! About 20 minutes later our train pulled in. :) We got on and our guide left and we surveyed the scene. There were probably about about 50 or more beds in our car which consisted of one bed below and one above with a drape over them. So basically you have an aisle and then beds and drapes all over. Kinda sketchy!!! Jen and I were so, so, so grateful to have Paul and Lauren. They are on their honeymoon and have been for the past 3 months, traveling to South America, Australia, Thailand, and finishing up here. They were truly lovely, kind, and hilarious people! We kept each other laughing!
So the bathroom situation on the train was grim. Indian toilets that deposited directly onto the tracks. Jen and I expected as much, but were truly grateful that we have been trained up at Rising Star to be able to handle these situations! And so we enforced our almost-dehydration diet! I ordered dinner on the train that cost about $0.80. It was some sort of potatoes with sauce and rice. It was okay, but nothing great. They served dinner at 9 p.m. and I went to dinner right after. That's when the fun began.....
The train stops every 30-60 minutes for about 10-15 minutes. Since we started off by being about 20 minutes late, we knew it would only get worse from there. As we tried to go to sleep, we were wonderfully situated right next to the door that everyone would use to enter our cabin and get to the restrooms. Awesome. Every time that the door would open, my backpack at my feet would slightly move, I would wake up in a panic thinking that someone was taking my bag, and then try to go back to "sleep". Sleep came and went, I would see dark shadows move past my drapes since I had the upper bunk and our curtains would be ripped open every now and then by the conductor to see if a body really was in the bed. Our train was supposed to arrive at 5:45 a.m., but we arrived 2 1/2 hours late!!!
The highlight of the morning was when I got up at 5 a.m. to use the facilities and I tried to climb back into my bed. Now, mind you, the ladder start at what feels like my ear and then there are only 3 steps up. Because it starts so far up, it is hard to not hit the wall and also swing your weight far over to the left to get onto the bed. I misstepped and accidentally landed with my foot on Jen's bed, to which I heard a large groan. Oh, poor Jen!
Trains in India - not so cool. As we were pulling into stations we saw nothing but tons and tons of garbage and so many people using the great outdoors as their bathroom I wanted to puke! Note to self - never walk on Indian railroad tracks.
Here's some footage of the train.....
Sounds like you are having a great adventure!
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