Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Overnight with India Rail - or why I will never moan about British Rail
10APRIL 2013
I will never again be critical of British Rail, after a 12 1/2 hour planned journey which was 2 hours late.
Before the journey we had a wander around Agra Fort. This was the first monument we had visited without a guide, and it was quite a pleasure just to wander around at our own pace without being bombarded with numerous facts, most of which we would have forgotten before leaving the fort. After 6 days of visiting palaces, forts, mausoleums and other sites, we have now had enough of this stage of the journey and are really looking forward to the next stage in a rural situation.
We had a lazy, but very hot, wander around some of the Agra streets, taking photos, chatting to a few people, and being bombarded by noise, traffic and rickshaw drivers hassling us to take a ride!
We left the hotel at 6.30 to head to the railway station, which was only 10-15 minutes away. It was staring to get dark, but nobody was bothering with headlights. Have also realised that Indian cars are built with a redundant item. A huge amount of money could be saved if no cars were fitted with indicators, which are never used.
When we arrived at the station we were greeted by the usual noise and chaos, and the site of scores and scores of rickshaws, presumably waiting for business. We were accompanied by a representative of the agents of the company who helped us with our travel plans. He organised a porter, and we later were told that he had been at the station since 7am and we were the first people that he had worked for. He does not get any wage, and so after 12 hours he went home with the tip that we had been advised was the correct amount to give him, namely 100 rupees, about £1.25.
As we entered the station, it made the outside look and feel like a silent church awaiting a funeral. There were people everywhere, lying, sitting, squatting, talking, shouting, running, eating, drinking. Two trains arrived before ours, and it was fascinating to watch. The trains were crowded not just to capacity, but overflowing. Most trains have about 18 carriages, and the standard ones are intended for 70 people, but actually normally carry about 90. Tickets have to be booked at least 2months in advance, and often earlier, or are not available. A number of late tickets are available but cost a lot more. Having said that the cost is incredibly cheap, with a basic ticket to Delhi from Agra -over 100 miles, costing just over £1.
As the trains were leaving the station whole families, who had been busy saying goodbye to their relatives, would run across the platform, and, one by one jump onto the moving train. Even later, chai sellers, newspaper vendors, food sellers, would jump off the moving train, having continued to try to sell their wares as the train pulled out, and run along the platform, as the train discharged them at speed.
We got onto our train, having had to search for our A1, air- conditioned, 2 tier carriage. There is no order to the carriages, and you just have to find where yours is situated. It might be thought that with that description of our carriage, it would be a bit like British Rail, 1st Class, or at least 2nd. Class. That would be correct, but British Rail in the 1950's!
Our carriage was divided into 8 separate, open sections, each for 6 passengers. There was a long corridor running down the carriage and4 passengers were on one side of the corridor, and the other two on the other side, running parallel with the length of the train. These latter were our two seats and beds. Our cases had to go under the lower tier bed / seat, and as there was only space for 2 of them, the other one went on the other side of the corridor where there was space under one of the other passengers beds. My two camera cases joined us on our seat / bed.
To say the train was not very clean was an understatement. I won't describe the toilet / hole in the floor, but we tried to avoid it as much as is possible in a 14 hour journey, and declined to use it for hand washing, relying instead on the hand sanitizer that we had with us. The thought of using the toilet and wash basin to clean our teeth made us feel sick!
After a while into the journey, the ticket collector arrived. He was carrying reams of official paper, and requested our ticket. He scrutinised this A4 sheet of paper, with names, passport numbers and a host of other details. He then scrutinised his paperwork, before re-examining our ticket. He then told us we owed some money! We explained that our tickets had been paid for in advance, and that is where the problem lay. It appears that after we had bought our tickets, parliament set the railway budget, and fares went up, and were applied retrospectively. So we had no choice but to pay the excess. However, it did not break the bank, as we owed 45 rupees, or about 60p! We received a hand written receipt, and before this was passed across to us, he removed his piece of carbon paper, and placed it below the next ticket, ready for another unwitting customer.
We then had some of the food that our hotel had provided for us as a packed dinner, and then about 10pm decided to try to get some sleep. I had the top tier, and Cherith the bottom one, and we each had one camera bag for company. As the length of the bed was less than 6 feet, this did not make for a good night. We pulled across the badly hung, fraying, and incompletely fitting curtains, and tried to sleep.
Try was the operative word, because we had to cope with combined noise of the other 47 people in our carriage, who were up and down and moving around, with lights going on and off. From time to time an armed guard would walk down the corridor, and at stations along the line passengers would leave and new ones would join, thinking nothing of pulling back curtains as they walked up and down the corridor, to check who was behind the curtains.
The "gentleman" or should I say large and noisy guy opposite us was perhaps the worst of the lot. His wife deserves a medal, although based on her constant sniffing and snorting, perhaps he does as well. I have over the years shared rooms with other guys as I have travelled and holidayed. Many of them have spent large parts of the night producing sounds from different body orifices, but this guy made them all look like rank amateurs.
At just before 6am I gave up and popped "downstairs" to discover that Cherith had had a worse night than mine. She also gave me the bad news that as far as she could tell we were running late. It was difficult to be certain where we were as some of the stations did not have clear signs. Let me explain that we were travelling on the Mahakosal EXPRESS. This express train takes over 12 scheduled hours to travel 683 km - or about 420 miles, which is about 35 miles per hour. It involves 19 planned stops, although it also appeared to stop at other stations not on our itinerary. And when we eventually worked out exactly where we had got to, we realised that we were running 2 hours late.
Anyway we made it eventually, and what an experience. Probably one that we won't rush to repeat. We then had just over 2 hours by car, initially along the normal chaotic town and village roads and then over bone shaking roads as we headed to Bandhavgarh National Park.
We eventually arrived at Junglemantra, our home for the next 6 days, to be greeted by Shailin, the owner. We then realised that our efforts had been worthwhile. A lovely lodge, quiet and secluded. Done out in a rustic style, with bamboo walls to our large airy room, with air conditioning and two fans
Lunch was planned for 2pm, and our first drive was to start at 3pm.
But would we see tigers?
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