The train, the train!!!!

Ok, I'm finally getting to my story about our train trip to the big city. It started the evening before, when we were already tired from a day traipsing about the caves under the hot sun...we hadn't even had dinner yet (sob story, eh? :). We decided that we were going to take the train the next day (instead of riding with all our kit) so we hopped on my moto and rode down to Lonavala (not our favorite place :) to the station. After queueing at the ticket window, and enduring 2 guys jump the queue in front of us, the agent told us reservations were on platform 2! So we crossed the tracks, me thinking of the train accident at Bangalore (I didn't tell you about that, did I? Oh well...later :) and only noticed the bridge once we were on the other side :)

We found reservations. There were lots of people crowded around the window (with signs on either side of the window saying "Please Q" :) and they all had slips of paper. I looked around and I didn't see any stacks of paper slips around, but just a moment later a guy walks up to the window, in front of the crowd, shoves his hand through the window hole and shouts "form!" and the agent gave him a form. Ah, that is what we need to do then :) So I push my way to the front, stick my hand in the window hole and shout "form!" and nothing happened, I am ignored....must be my funny accent :), so I tried again and we got our form (woohoo!!!! step 1 is successful :)

We looked at the form and they want to know exactly which train you want to be on - the train number and the name of the train - and who is travelling, how old they are, the gender of the passengers...the whole 9 yards. And they want this for EVERY seat reservation, it was lucky we were on a direct train! We went off to find out the train numbers we would need and we found a station manager to help us. He was great - he knows all the train numbers and trains and the times and he helped us fill in the form. Suitably equipped we went back to the reservation hall and staked out a place in the "queue". When I got to the window I handed the form over the guy and he tapped a bit on his computer (yes, they are computerized :) and told us that it was too late to get a reservation on the 4:40am, it had already been closed. Did we want the next train? Well it's a 3 hour ride, so we didn't want the 7:15 or we would miss most of the morning, so I said just do the return and we would buy the ticket in the morning for the 4:40...I turned to relate the info to A, just the bit about it being too late to get our reservation, and the guy behind said "well then, you're done, move along" and I shot back that we were still getting the return reservation! Pushy boy!!! That single ticket was 263 rupees for both of us, and us being in cheap mode thought that it was quite expensive :) that's not even 2 Pounds for each! We headed back to Karla to get some dinner and then get to bed for our early departure.

It was early the next morning, but we were awake and excited....and a bit chilly! It's cold in the morning when you are only in shirtsleeves and the wind is going by you on the moto - it definitely made sure we were awake! We arrived at 4:20 am and parked the moto and went in to buy a ticket - no one in the queue and within minutes we had the ticket - only 86 rupees for the pair of us!!! Excellent :) Well...until we tried to find a place on the train. Without a reservation you are in "General" and that is hard seats and the bottom of the barrel - the mega cheap seats. One of the platform managers told us where to stand and what carriage to get on (you could tell he was a bit concerned about 2 western women in that car :).

When the train arrived we climbed on board....yikes! There were people everywhere. Lying on the lower benches, on the floor, on the top sleeper/baggage space. And it was sometimes more than one person having a kip...and with maybe one or two others sitting on the bench with them. Everyone was very nice and there was shuffling about to make room for us (it was very sweet :). We were surround by people that didn't have a lot of money, many were ill (one guy right across from us had a terrible cough and an even worse problem with his skin, poor guy), but they were all friendly. A and I took turns napping and saying how foul the air smelled (the pollution was really disturbing).

We had been told that the train went to Dada and we would have to change to a local train. No problem. We arrived at Dadar (close enough to what it sounded like :) and...we had no idea where to go. There were no signs, so we sought out the station manager again :) As I was patiently waiting for him to finish with his current problem he asked me what I wanted and I told him we were looking for the local train to Mumbai CST and he checked my ticket and said platform 3...I was dismissed and we were on our way :)

We got to platform 3 just as the train was arriving and it was chocka with people!!!! We saw the Ladies only carriage (we knew about them) and we went for that. All of the sudden, in a massive rush of humanity, the train was empty of all but a few people - we had the train car to ourselves! It was a very pleasant and quick journey to the end of the line. Victoria Terminus was just like the big London train stations, apparently modeled after St Pancras (or was it King's Cross? I don't remember :). We got a couple of small coffees and headed into town.

Wow, it was LOVELY! And it was very clean and not busy (we were there at 7:45, people weren't even awake yet :) Then we had our day in Mumbai (more later) and then it was time to head back. We wanted to get a quick snack to take on the train and we wanted to try the McDonald's Indian specials (no beef burgers to be found!!!!) like the McAloo Masala :) We had extra time, so we ate at McDs and....we did not enjoy the food :( but the music was good :)

We had asked on arrival which platform the train back to Lonavala might depart from so when we got back to the station we knew right where to go and our train was waiting for us :) We saw our names on the list on the side of the car we had been assigned to and we went in to find our seats. Wow, posh! This was a sleeper car and the hard wooden seats of the morning were now padded! There was no one around, we had the place to ourselves and we even had switches for the light and fans in our area...posh! :) It definitely explained the disparity in the ticket prices. Several people came and sat in our area and they all departed at one of the major junctions. They were replaced by a very nice gentleman that worked for the railway. His English was decent enough for us to converse quite a bit of the journey back to Lonavala (also his destination)..and he also gave us his mobile number and told us to call if we had any problems :) It was a very pleasant journey back broken frequently by the tea men running up and down the aisles shouting Chai! Chai! In the cattle class cars (like the one we had taken in the morning) the tea men and other sellers were outside the windows and handing things through the bars like it was a prison car - it was definitely way more packed than the morning train!

So, here ends our train adventure in India :)