Train Ride And The Night From Hell: Bangalore to Karad!

First of all, dear reader,  I did a foolish thing that I will NEVER, EVER do again: book a train and get on a waiting list.

This is a VERY common practice in India, and is yet another form of the madness I often encounter here in this strangest of all strange lands!

The trains are the main form of transportation around India, because flying is too expensive for most and the buses don't have bathrooms and take forEVER. Hence... most of the population of 1.5 billion in this country go most anywhere and everywhere by train. 

What this means is that the trains are PACKED. Unless you book weeks in advance (hard to do, because it is hard--at least, for me-- to plan that far ahead of time), most likely you will find yourself on a waiting list. Get this: I have seen up to one HUNDRED people on a waiting list on a train that goes to a popular destination at a desireable time of day or night!! I mean, think about this: if you are person 99, what do you think your chances are of actually GETTING a seat on that train??! Heck, forget about 99 or 100... what about being #20??! OR ANY number, for that matter!?!? Because, the bottom line is, the chances of getting on are slim-to-none, so why even bother??? How is it that SOOO many crazy people just keep adding themselves on to a waiting list, especially one so insanely long!??!  I cannot make ANY sense of it at all...and if YOU can, by all means, enlighten me!!!!

Now, mind you, when I booked my ticket from Bangalore, it was the highest possible class: 1st class, 2 tier, AC, first car. Expensive, by train travel standards. Even so, I was number THREE on the waiting list. So...seemed at least a somewhat safe bet that 2 people would drop out, NO?!

A bad bet, indeed. 

At least, a MOST nerve-wracking one!!!

Which is why I wound up paying for a night at the Bangalore Airbnb that I didn't even use... 

I had no way of knowing whether I would be on that train or not... 

Not 24 hours before, as someone told me I would know...

Not 12 hours... counting down from there..  

No, NOT until it was a mere TWO hours before departure did I learn that I actually made it on!!

Nerve-wracking to the Nth degree!!!!

What a hustle, to quickly pack up what remained unpacked, grab a taxi and rush over to the train station, just barely in time!!!

As stated, insanity. Well, chock it up to experience, right?!!?
This was the overnight train... a 16 hour ride. 

All well and good for the Indians, who CAN sleep through anything, including a noisy, rocking train and on a hard vinyl "mattress", more akin to a rock than a mattress (thank God for my AIR mattress, which goes EVERYWHERE with me!!!) 

It WAS a nice compartment, in fact...which I had all to myself until sometime in the middle of the night. ALL EXCEPT for the fact that the AC was cranked WAY too high and the compartment was freezing. (I complained, but of course nothing at all was done about it. Good thing I ALSO travel with down jacket and ski cap!!) 
I even ALMOST fell asleep under my 3 blankets... but alas, I could not. It wasn't JUST the rocking motion and screech of metal on metal as the train wheels rolled along the tracks... no, worse: there was a corridor door just outside my compartment that ALSO screeched--and BADLY--everytime someone passed through it to go down the corridor. And this, sad to say, was every few minutes or so, throughout most of the night!
Hence... another sleepless night in India...another night from hell!

NEVER again, swear to God!!!

A man came into the compartment in the night... a quiet fellow, until he fell asleep...and...snored!!!

He left in the early a.m., and was replaced by an Indian woman and her young daughter. She sat there and stared at me for hours (yes, I AM that alien from that strange place they call "the West"!!!). Her daughter played some game or other on mom's cell phone, noisy as all get out, until I insisted--with pantomime, they did not speak English--the kid plug in my earbuds. 

It was only when THEY fell asleep that, despite ALL the noises and rocking, I did manage to sleep a bit from my sheer exhaustion. 

Then, I was at least able to appreciate--albeit, in a bleery-eyed sort of way--the lovely scenery passing by.

Not a moment too soon, we arrived in Karad... 

And THAT crazy story will continue in the next post...stay tuned!!! 

It looks nice because it is at least pretty spacious, and because passengers of these compartments pay a premium, it is not shared by more than 2 persons at any given time...or, at least, not more than 2 ADULTS at a time. Apparently noisy children on cell phones don't count!!! 

 

The view out the window as we passed through farm lands... in the foreground, my little table for eating my breakfast on as I watched the scenery. Really could have been wonderful if I had actually SLEPT!!! 

The weird coloration is owing to the slightly tinted train window...