21st jan

21st jan
Well our train ride was today and really was an experience in itself. Mumbai central train station wasn't as chaotic as you'd imagine but people were quite keen to talk to us. den had a somewhat silted conversation due to our complete lack of any Hindi, with a bloke from the army. he wanted to lift and see how heavy our bags were, nd it seems he was reasonabley impressed. a woman came pas sweeping the floor =, he told us she only earnt about 3000 rupees for the entire year...thats about..£37. i gave him a busines card and he was pretty pleased with that.
So our train came about 40 minutes before departure, bit complicated to find what carriage to get onto when its your first time, but got there in the end, and OMG the most chaotic scene ever on our carriage...mostly in respect to putting bags on the racks. anyways we found a space for ours and all was good. but then ended up getting into a fight with an old woman who was to sit next to me. She had brought her poor son on to load up her luggage and was telling him to take our bags off and put hers up. Anyways i defied all aspects of seniority and made it quite clear i wasn't having a bar of it. had a swiss couple next to us who seemed to be vetrans at this...they said sometimes physical fights can break out. wasn't sure if ii REALY should b fighting with someone who i'd have to sit next to for 8 hours but there you go. Seemed all was forgiven in the end when she offered me some of her food. she did do the biggest burps ever, the whole way there, which was quite amusing. offering of food seemed to be the norm and i sampled lots of tasty snacks! they all seemed pretty keen to see how i would react to the food. we sat opposite a couple with an 8 year old daughter who were relly nice. MUCH different from englnd where nobody talks...everyone is talking and sharing and laughing, was nice atmosphere. anyways arrived in ahmedabad at about 9pm, where we had a couple of hours to kill, crusty station with lots of homeless people sleeping inside and no chairs ANYWHERE..except in this small takeaway joint. found our sleeping carriage, we ended up sharing with this older couple who were ok...no burping or farting this time! got given blanket and sheets so made our beds...me and den had the top bunks. toilet was VERY ancient on this one. The last train was nicer and newer...but you basically still pee directly onto the tracks....very odd and kinda drafty. so lights out and discovered the aircon blowing direct onto my face and this annoying BLUE night light, hoodie up over my eyes and bundled under the covers...ended up quite cosy and did get some shut eye. poor den who didn't QUITE fit in the bunk, had a bit ore trouble getting cosy :P