Having been to the bus station in Delhi I can safely say that I had very low expectations for the train station. But it wasn’t bad. I mean it wasn’t beautiful but it wasn’t that crowded and was fairly well organized – although our train was on track #1 so I walked in and was where I needed to be.
We hopped on the train – assigned seating which I like – and relatively on time we started off. The train was nice enough, not seats as nice as Amtrak or a TGV; I’d say about the level of a commuter rail. We were on the “high speed” “nice” train which meant that we got food. So after about 20 minutes they came around with a bottle of water for everyone; and there were convenient little water bottle holders; 20 minutes later a tea/coffee service which was very nice. They brought everyone a little thermos with hot water and you could add tea bags or coffee – the thermos reminded me of ones I had when I was little for lunch at elementary school. So I drank my tea and had my snack.
Then about an hour or more later: breakfast – I had “veg cutlets”, which are hard to explain but quite good.
So why was I losing my mind with all this lovely service? Because Indians are So Loud! There were kids running up and down the aisle almost non-stop…until one of them would fall and then start crying; the parents pretty much ignored the children the entire ride. Constant cell phones ringing or dinging notification of text messages; and when I say constant I mean the guy next to me got at least 20 calls. And of course they answer the calls and have loud conversations. And…my personal favorite…people can also play songs through their phones so I always had some sort of song playing in my ear, only about 2 of which I actually liked; most of which I really did not like at all.
The revelation I came to is that almost all Indians exist without thinking about how their actions affect the strangers around them; they want to hear a song; they play the song; not thinking that maybe they should put headphones on. I guess that is because there are always people around so really you can’t worry about what strangers think. This is also why at one point in time the guy behind me was playing a song that the person in front of me didn’t like it so she started playing her own song; which then prompted the guy across the aisle to play his own song. Ugh.
Next train ride…ear plugs.
But, the positives. Yes, we got in late, but I expect everything in India to be late, and we did have lots of fog on the way up there so they had to go slowly...you never know what will stroll onto the tracks over here.
Positive #1; they have this waitlist system with the trains; so if it is sold out you get on a waitlist and as people cancel (there are very small cancellation charges and lots of people do cancel) you get moved up. For our return train we were waitlist #25 and 26 on Thursday and on Sunday we were confirmed. I think that is a great idea.
Positive #2; the food was actually quite good. The photo below is of the food tray I got on the return; some bread, a Chicken Curry, Daal (lentils), yogurt and rice. With ice cream for desert!
Positive #3: another brilliant funny phrasing. On our menu for dinner was listed “Pickle in Blister”. This meant a little amount of pickle relish in a packet. That cracked me up.
Positive #4: I had this vision of trains in India chugging through the countryside with the doors open and people standing in them. And...the doors were open! Well, not always, but anyone can open them and just look out. Highly dangerous to be sure, so I stood a good 5 feet back and held on; but to me that was The Indian Train Experience.
Positive #5: for all my whining about the noise…the trip up and back, 6 hours (plus delays) each way with good food cost me a total of…$30. So I will stop my whining and find my ear plugs and next weekend hopefully hop on another train for a final Indian journey!
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