Sleeper in India - A first-er!

Well, first of all, I must admit, I actually have been in a sleepingtrain before: but that was in europe and over 10 years ago, so I only fairly remember the trip. But I´m sure I will never forget about my first experience in a so called Sleeper in India! We were prepared for the worst: no sleep, no toilet, no safety, no sanitation, no space and for sure no comfort. The whole group was not looking forward to it, but it was part of the incredible india experience, and obviously, we were up for the challange.

Our leader waited with us in the hotel until we got confirmation that the train would be on time. This particular train was known for it´s totally absurd long delays, so she was not going to spend hours waiting at the train station with us if she could avoid it. All started out very well : the train was supposed to be on time, so we left the hotel as planned around 3:30 pm. We arrived at Varanasi Train Station twenty minutes later and made our way straight to the gate. At 4pm we were ready to enter the train. But there was no train to enter in sight… yet! Our train was supposed to leave around 6pm, so I give them the credit: we were early. With all the heavy travel backpacks tied to our back, we soon decided to get rid of them and set them down on the dusty, dirty ground. Everything touching that nasty ground (even only for a few seconds) immediatly turned dirty and gross. The gate was packed with people waiting. Most of them (clearly not their first time in a Sleeper…!) had brought some old dirty blanket for the whole family to sit on, others had found some old newspaper pages or garbage bags to place their bottoms onto. We didn´t think of bringing anything alike, of course not, beginner´s mistake. Won´t happen again that´s for sure. So most of us chose to stand instead of sitting blankly into the dirt. But my legs were shaking, I had been sick for days and therefore not been able to eat anything other than one pathetic banana. I felt weak, and soon I catch myself to not caring about the dirt on the ground anymore. Before I could sit down, my roommate came with an old paper bag that she found somewhere. So we could share to sit down. I was more than glad, and we sat there, waiting. My friend, obviously better prepared than me, had brought a travel magazine with her. Since it was all written in Thai, I mostly looked at the pictures and dreamed of my next destination to travel to. We ended up waiting for two straight hours until the train finally rolled in, though exactly on time, at 6pm, still we didn´t leave the station until 6.30pm. I was shaking by that time and had found my little bed to myself on the ground compartment, at the side of the corridor. I quickly readied everything, rolled out my sleeping bag and took off my shoes. I snuggeled into my sleeping bag, drew the curtain to make my little cabin more private, and fell asleep right away.

I did wake up several times. I was not drinking much, because it dreaded me to have to use the train toilet. Still I had to go tohe bathroom quite often, thanks to my weak bladder. Although it was not as bad as expected, it was still very unpleasant. There was only one western toilet close by, and I am sorry to say this, but Indians are just pigs. Swiss train toilets are not the cleanest either, but they will look like heaven compared to Indian train toilets. The first time I entered the toilet, it was already wet all over the floor. And the later it got, the dirtier the toilet became. I am not going to torture you with the details here, but it was not enjoyable.

Other times I would just be looking out of the window, watching how lights flickered by in the darkness. Our leader came to see me after approximately three hours have passed to tell me, that we have got already delayed by 5 hours. I have no idea how we managed to be late by 5 hours by only driving for three hours and leaving the station on time. I kept on falling back asleep, earplugs in my ears preventing me from hearing annoying baby screams from the compartment right next to me, or the snoring of the indian woman above me, and a blindfold in front of my eyes to keep me from being blinded by the lights turning on and off by strangers the whole trip. Our guide had told us to set the alarm for five o´clock in the morning, since arriving time in Agra was planned to be on 6.30. When I woke up to my alarm ringing, it turned out we still had about 8 hours to go. I wasn´t even going to start trying to figure out how a delay of such extent was even possible, since we have been moving from the minute we have left the station the day before. Instead, I rolled myself back up, closed my eyes and slept some more. I was actually glad for the long rest!

Our adventurous train ride ended out to be a 22 hour train ride instead of 10 hours, and a full 24 hour travel for our group since we didn´t get to the hotel in Agra until 3.30pm the next day. So much to my first experience in a Sleeper in India: we survived! And you know what? That´s India. You never know what happens in India, everything can happen. As our leader would tell us at the end of this insane trip: Welcome to Incredible India!