Day 32: 18 Hour Train Ride
- Wake up bright and early to catch my 6 am train to Agra.
- Train arrives only 30 minutes late!!1 Pretty good by India standards.
- Once on the train, back to bed for a few hours.
- Wake up around 9:30, and settle in for the 18 hour train ride.
- Make friends with the one other young man in my section of the sleeper car.
- New friend, Jagat, hops off the train around 3 pm, and I spend the rest of the time reading, writing, eating, and napping.
- Reach Agra around 1 in the morning, check into hotel and in bed by 2 am, with plans to wake up to see the Taj Mahal at sun rise.
Story-Time and Reflection:
So I thought about not really writing anything about this day, but since long distance trains is such a popular way to travel in India, they have built up quite and infrastructure surrounding it, and the whole thing is quite an experience.
To start with, taking the train is a great way to see India. Granted, you can't just hop off the train and visit the passing villages, but just starring out the window at the various passing scenery is quite entertaining in itself.
Second, everyone in India uses these long distance trains, so it's a "when in Rome" type of thing to do.
I made a friend on the train, and I will touch on that later, but first I want to just talk about the experience of riding on the train. These long distance trains have several classes that you an travel by. First Class AC (yes, AC stands for air conditioning), Second Class AC, Third Class AC, Sleeper Class, and General Unreserved. In AC1 cars have sections with 4 beds, 2 bunks, and lockable doors, however AC1 is twice as expensive as AC2. AC2 is what I have been taking. It has the same arrangement of 4 beds, 2 bunks (as in 2 lower beds, and 2 upper beds), but instead of doors their are only curtains. I take AC2, less so for the comfort and more so for the peace of mind. In AC2 you are still among the more well off people of India, and you really don't have to worry about having your stuff stolen while you sleep, or people trying to feed you drug laced snacks. AC3, again, is pretty safe, but each section has 6 beds between 2 bunks, so there is an lower, middle, and upper bed in each bunk......which means there is no option for sitting up. Sleeper class has no AC which, wouldn't be a major problem, but again here you can't really sit up in your bed, and you have to keep a better eye on your stuff. General Unreserved is just a car with some benches along the sides, and, as the name suggests, there are no reserved seats. It is every man for himself to find a place on the bench or a spot on the floor. For a short distance trip during the day, this class is fine, as you won't get stabbed or anything, but if you are going the distance, good luck finding a place to sleep, and if you do sleep, don't be surprised f your stuff is gone when you wake up. When the train begins boarding, people crowd around the unreserved class car, pushing and shoving toward the front, in hopes of getting a seat. Watching this happen is quite the sight.
Beyond the various classes, there is a train culture here, or really, a food culture, as many trains do no have food cars. Many stops serve food that you can grab and go, or eat quickly at the stop before the train takes off again. Some train stops even have reputations for specialty foods and snacks. If you choose to stay on the train, no worries, you will find plenty of chia guys rushing through each car chanting, "CHIA CHIA CHIA." You will also find people selling plastic wrapped sandwiches, people passing out menus advertising that if you call in an order before a certain stop, they will deliver food to you when the train stops, and people selling plastic trays of thalis. Once again, have no fear, it's near impossible to lose weight in India, even when on a train with no food available. The best part, in general for India, is that you'll probably eat more than normal, and maintain your weight, because all the food is home-cooked, and veggies are the star, given that meat is too expensive for most to eat everyday. Quick tangent, FOOD is what I will miss most when I return to the State. They use such basic ingredients in their dishes, but they know far more about how to spices and any american home-cook I have ever known. Sorry, mom. Sorry to both my grandmothers. Your food is delicious, but India's work wonders in how they spice up the bare basic ingredients that are readily available to them.
Moving on to this particular train ride, I made another friend, Jagat. Just a few years older than myself, he lives in Mumbai, although originally from Jaipur, and is an Actor. He has acted in several smaller Bollywood productions, as well as a TV series that is now being broadcasted beyond India.
When I hopped on the train at Jalgaon, the other 3 beds in my section were full, but by the time I awoke, it was just me and Jagat. We started chatting, politely at first, but things took off from there. We awoke around 9:30 or so, and we pretty much talked till he got off the train around 3. We talked about our families, our significant others, our lives, our goals, each others cultures, all the good stuff. He also helped me figure out the food situation as it pertained to lunch time. He is certainly another person who I will keep in contact with, and when I visit India again, someone who I will meet up with. At one point, when he was telling his wife over the phone that he made a friend from Chicago, she joked that now they have a house in Chicago, and I have a house in Mumbai. Over and over again, Indian hospitality is like none other.
Over all, the train ride was a fun experience, and if was wonderful to meet make another friend in India. It's easy in India to become too suspicious of people who are interested in talking to you, or inviting you over, or engaging you in general. Yes, about half the time someone wants to engage you, they want to do some business or take advantage of you, but that is still only half. Even after the time I have been touted around from shop to shop in Mysore, and the time I was almost scammed in Goa, I still will at least respond to people who want to talk to me, and not just blow them off. At this point, I am well equipped to judge if someone is truly interested in forming a personal relationship, or if they are going to try and get me to buy something or scam me out of my money, so I give everyone the chance. I trust first, and if they begin to talk too much about what they sell for a living, or good karma, then I put my guard up. And because I chose to trust first, I have made a more friends, and have experienced more of India then I would have if I was touring myself around by my guide book and not speaking to people.
A fellow traveler in Hampi told me that people tend to fall in love with the first place they travel to, and he was right. I love India. But I also recognize that you have to be smart when you travel here, which is something my father told me when he dropped me of at O'Hare airport....."Be smart." But as a white suburban boy, who dropped himself in the middle of a backwards place, you have to learn what it means to be smart here. I know I have talked about being fooled and almost being fooled in earlier blogs, but honestly, it was only through making mistakes and almost making mistakes, that I have learned how to be smart while traveling in India, because being smart in India, is not something you can learn from a book. No matter how many times you have read not to do such and such thing in India, you really don't know why not to do it until you have done it or almost done it.
I love India. I want to bring everyone I know here. But at the same time, it's only after being here for a full month that I feel entirely comfortably and confident to travel on my own here. It's an amazing country, but just as everywhere in the world, you find both the good and the bad, side by side.
