Adopted on the train
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
35
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Calicut,
India
Saturday, February 9, 2008
We arrived at the train station an hour early to make sure there were no problems getting our tickets and getting seated. After buying tickets for the air-conditioned carriage, our first challenge was finding where we were supposed to sit. Each carriage has a code, such as S1, S2, B1 plus several other abbreviations, none of which we have the slightest idea about the meaning. I went to the information desk and the woman there told me we could sit on any AC coach. So we found the closest AC coach to us (which was 2-tier AC) and sat down.
Just before the train pulled away the conductor came along to check our tickets. He told us that we were sitting in the wrong place and had to either pay 300 Rupees to upgrade or move to the next carriage (3-tier AC) and pay 50 Rupees. The conductor moved on while we decided what to do. I had a look at the 3AC coach, which seemed quite noisy and we were a little confused by the whole situation. A British-Indian guy sitting nearby said we should just stay where we were as the conductor wouldn't come back. So we just stayed. We got chatting to the British-Indian guy as the train pulled away - it turned out he lived not a million miles away from us. About an hour into the journey however, the conductor did come back, and as we were enjoying the conversation we thought we should just pay to upgrade. We weren't allowed to pay however. Our new-found friend insisted on paying for us, no matter how much we resisted. In fact we almost felt like we'd been adopted on the journey as he really looked after us, keeping us supplied with tea (again, we tried to pay, but he was quicker at getting his money out than we were!) and discussions on politics, the environment, family, tips on traveling in India and all sorts. After traveling as a couple for so long, it was nice to have someone else looking out for us. The time passed so quickly on this four and a half hour journey that we almost missed our stop at Calicut. But we got off the train just in the nick of time.
We didn't do anything in Calicut. We went to the hotel, had dinner there, went to sleep, had breakfast and went to the bus station to get a bus to Mysore.
