I’m not a fan of planes. They are very useful, especially for very long journeys, but I try to avoid them when time and finances allow.
I was in Kerala in South India. I wanted to be in Nepal, which is across the northern Indian border.
I could fly to Kathmandu and then get a jeep 8 hours south to the All Hands & Hearts project I was aiming for.
Alternatively, I could get a train. It’ll take a lot longer. It’ll be much cheaper. It’ll be an adventure. It’ll be better for the environment. Easy decision: train.
There’s a train station in northern India called Jaynagar. And there is a train line from Jaynagar into Nepal, to Janakpur. And Janakpur is only a few hours by jeep from project. So I planned to get a train to from Trivandrum to Jaynagar and then to Janakpur and then a jeep to project.
The Indian train system is big and complex. And the Indian train ticketing system is also big and complex. But with a bit of help, we managed to find a decent route. I would get a train on Thursday afternoon from Trivandrum to Kolkata which would get me in around midday on Saturday (yes, Saturday). Then a few hours to find my way across Kolkata to a different station. An overnight train from there gets me into Jaynagar late morning on Sunday. Which means I could get across the border (train probably, but there are often other options for crossing borders) sometime on Sunday and stay the night in Jaynagar, or somewhere nearby, and then be on project on Monday. Easy.
But the world rarely works as planned. And this train adventure was no exception.
My train was on time from Trivandrum. I found my seat. I put my rucksack underneath the seat. I had a lower berth in sleeper class. So the window seat until the middle bunk got transformed from seat into bunk, and then I had to lie down. My home for 2 days. Nice.
There are meant to be 8 people in our little section. Three on my side (lower, middle, upper bunks), three opposite me and then to the side were two more (side lower, and side upper). We usually had far more than 8 people in our little section, including for the sleeping portions of the trip. So it was often two (or three) people per bunk. You can get a train ticket that includes the bunk (like I did) or you can get a ticket that allows you on the train, but you’re not guaranteed a berth. Sometimes you have to do this as the trains can sometimes book up several weeks in advance. With about 20 carriages on each train and about 70 berths in each carriage, that’s a lot of people! Keeping in mind that some people will only do part of the journey, very few will go all the way from Trivandrum to Kolkota, that’s even more people than you might think.
At one stage a lovely young man who spoke some English got on and hung out in my section. He didn’t have a ticket at all but bought one from the conductor at one point. For the first night, I think he perched on the end of someone else’s bed. For the second night (or most of it, he was getting off the train about 4am) he sort of sat at the foot of my bunk (he did ask) with his feet stretched over the person sleeping on the floor and resting on the bunk opposite.
He was lovely and he helped me get food and water as I needed it and was able to tell everyone else what I was up to. Lots of people were quite interested in the white woman travelling alone in sleeper class (why aren’t you in AC second or third?).
At Kolkata I found a taxi to take me to the other train station where I found a cloak room in which I could leave my rucksack while I went in search of a coffee shop (or equivalent) and a bathroom. I found a little restaurant thing that served momos so that was nice and it was in a little food court with a fairly decent bathroom so I was able to change my clothes and wipe myself down with some wet wipes. (Not my first rodeo, I’ve done long distance travel before.) Not quite the same as a shower, but much better than nothing!
I found my second train and again was travelling from start to finish on it. I found my berth – side lower this time so I could sit upright all the time if I wanted, there isn’t a middle bed on the side so nothing to fold up into a bed. The top bunk is fixed and always available for that person to lie or sit on.
But not too long after we started a man from our little section asked if I would swap bunks with him, he was the top of three. I said yes which was the right thing to do since he shared the bunk with his wife and child (who was maybe 2 or 3 years old). Better for them to squash onto the side lower than to try to scramble up to the top.
Though I don’t love the top bunk. It is quite high up. And I’m somewhat scared of heights. And I was worried I’d fall (not much chance of that, there are two vertical bars that are likely to stop me falling). But the family got off about 1am so I got my bunk back at that point. Well, I say my bunk. Just after they got off a whole group of people came into our little section. There were basically two or three per bunk now including one person who just sat on the end of my bunk leaning on my legs all night. Given it was quite cold on this train at this point, I didn’t really object to the body heat. Plus, I was tired and not in the mood to engage with anyone to try to explain that I wasn’t that thrilled about them being there. Plus, this is part of the joy of sleeper class.
We arrived in Jaynagar with lots of time for me to find the train that would take me to Janakpur. Or rather, the train platform that would house the train that wouldn’t take me to Janakpur. Only Nepalis and Indians can get that train because there is no immigration office. I had to go to Raxaul / Birgunj and cross there. So after many discussions with many people and a trip to a nearby immigration / visa / border office about whether I could get the train or not and if I did in fact have to go to Raxaul, it turns out I had to go to Raxaul. Ah well. Take a deep breath. Smile. Thank the people who are being helpful and off we go.
I got a train to Dharbangar (which I had been through at about 8am that morning on my way to Jaynagar).
I then got a bus to Muzzaffapur and waited there for three hours till the bus to the Raxaul. That arrived about 1am and pulled up just round the corner from the border and parked. The driver came into the main bit of the bus and stretched out on the front seats. So I guess we’re sleeping here till the border opens.
I then walked across the border (there’ll be another post about this as this makes it sound easy and it was several hours of not easy). And got a three wheeler to the Birgunj bus station where I could get a bus to Bardibas and then a three wheeler to Sindhuli.
I stayed in a hotel on Monday and Tuesday nights, which was a very good idea since I would have been of no use to anyone on project on Tuesday – I was a complete zombie. I very much enjoyed my gorgeous hot shower and actual bed. Though there was one point sitting in bed reading where I thought there was something wrong with my ears and I then realised that this was the first time I had been surrounded by silence in four days!
I had spent 4 full days travelling. Thursday night and Friday night on the first train. Saturday night on the second train. Sunday night on a bus, mostly parked by the border. 3 trains, 3 buses, 1 three wheeler.
A lot more interesting that the flight would have been.
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