the train post.

The trains. Oh the trains.

I feel about train travel in India the same way I feel about going into a fancy cheese shop at home. The thought of both experiences inspires happiness tinged with apprehension, for very different reasons. I love cheese- and therefore cheese shops- but I do not love how light my wallet feels whenever I am going back through those doors with a bag of cheese in my hungry little hands. I love travelling by train in India- it is ever so much more comfortable than buses, and there are roaming snack men for goodness sake!- but I do not love the hassle that appears to be an inevitable part of train travel in India.

So both experiences are bittersweet. No, not bittersweet...happily frustrating.

We have now done a fair bit of train travel in this baffling country, and we have also travelled almost the entire spectrum of classes (except first class...prohibitively expensive as it is), so we have experienced a fair few different hassles. Like ticket men refusing to sell us tickets because we are tourists and that means having to hit a few extra buttons on their ticket machines and they have already hit so many buttons today, they really just don't feel like it; or being charged white man tax and paying two hundred percent too much for tickets that allow us to cram into a booth with sixteen other people; or being so unorganised we are only able to buy general class tickets and spending five hours sitting on a luggage rack with all of our bags and some other people's bags and a really old lady who I feel should have been at home with a blanket over her knees, not shoved on top of slatted metal 6 feet above the floor on an Indian train.

It's always an experience, I really am not complaining.

But last week, with mounds of luggage and my mum and an intense desire to be strolling the red clifftops of beachside Varkala (our much-anticipated destination), we had a whole new Indian train experience. We got to play 'Darjeeling Limited'.

Who has seen that film? Who remembers the part where every single time the three brothers got off the train for a smoke or some shopping or some bizarre convoluted spiritual ritual, they were always on the brink of missing it as it took off once again and had to run and run and run and jump?

That is what we had to do. And it was really fun(ny). And I love the feeling of running through a train station- you feel so...entitled. To step on feet accidently, or push past errant elbows in your haste...to look hopeful and desperate and important all at once.

So this is what happened...
There we were, sitting at the platform we were told to sit at and waiting waiting, very patiently (ok, I wasn't waiting patiently), for our train which was becoming more delayed with every passing moment. We played cards, we took selfies, we made faces at small staring Indian children. And after we almost boarded the wrong train because we were so sick of waiting and we were at the right platform and surely this is our train , it's been ages!, Mum and I went illuminate ourselves at the information booth. Where we found a crowd ten deep and an incredibly harried informer. Indian style, we elbowed our way to the front of the swarm, shoved our ticket at the man behind the desk and yelled "platform! Varkala!" to which he yelled "one! platform one! go go now! go!", his eyes wide with disbelief that we were not settled in our seats on our train that was apparently minutes from departing.

And so we ran. We ran back to Will on platform four (who was sitting on his bag knitting, the picture of serenity), garbled something like "train leaving now go quick leaving hurry!", grabbed our bags and tried to strap them up as we pushed and dragged and puffed our way back to platform one.

As we collapsed, red-faced and sweating, into the coach of some unimpressed looking Indian men, the train pulled out of the station.

Train travel in India. I love it. 

trains and the Taj.

From the sheer craziness of Varanasi we shot along the railway to the more touristy craziness of Agra. An ugly, dusty little town that smells of rotten eggs, we were keen to spend as little time here as possible. While I slept off the train ride of the night before Will went to visit Agra Fort, then after a lunch of lassis and toast it was off to see the Taj. The whole reason for visiting this town and the whole reason it doesn't matter the town itself is so horrible. The Taj Mahal is a beautiful amazing tribute to an obviously slightly insane man's wife who died giving birth to their 14th child. It is also an opportunity to do the hilarious tourist photo where you pretend to hold up a famous monument with your fingertips.
Since the Fort and Taj are the extent of Agra's sights, we spent our next morning there with our new book purchases in one of India's most ubiquitous, air-conditioned chain coffee shops, waiting for our train out.
We were bound for Mumbai, having decided to skip the desert state of Rajhastan owing to ridiculously high temperatures.
Our train ride was broken up by a stopover in a dusty little nothing town where we met a luggage attendant who was reading Paulo Coelho (of The Alchemist fame) and had an incredibly discounted lunch at the restaurant of a nervous young man who had just opened the business and was very eager to please.We also met an interested and curious young boy who was keen to see anything from our lives in Australia and was especially excited when I pulled out the computer and took some photos of him.
Then it was back to the train station to wait for our over-nighter, while curious Indians stood in quiet groups around us and stared.
(Sorry, still no photos. I am trying so as soon as I am successful you'll be able to see proof of our amazing adventures in the sub-continent. Til then, patience my friends!)