Train Ride #2 - Goa To Aluva

This train ride was nowhere near as nice as our trip from Bombay to Goa. For one, Goa was not the starting point. This meant that the train rolled into our station already full of people. It only stopped for 10 minutes so we had to jump on and find our supposedly empty seats. As I mentioned in my last post, we only had 3 confirmed seats to start with. They were in section B1, seats 57, 59 & 60. The 4th seat that we confirmed when we got to the station was in section B2, seat 36. That was in the next coach, not the best situation. I told the guys that we would try and switch seats with whoever was holding seat 58 between us, and see if they would move to B2-36. As it turns out, the person holding seat 58 was also getting on the train in Goa. Well the train rolled onto the platform at 2030, an hour late, (not unusual in India). We all jumped on and found section B1-57,59,60. There were 6 people in that section, all eating supper. A couple of them had laid out their bedding to sleep. I told them 3 of those seats were ours and to please move. You need to understand that there was chaos going on all around the whole time. We were in a very narrow corridor with all our bags, people were squeezing by both ways, vendors were coming by selling stuff for supper, people were all talking loud, shouting, laughing, (not at us), and everyone was doing their own thing. We were just part of the pandemonium. James took a moment to throw his bag up on the top bunk and climb up out of the way. Randy got the 2 older ladies who ended up staying in our section, to give up the other top bunk and Merv did the same as James. The dude who held seat 58 arrived and I asked him if he would mind switching with me so we could stay together. “No”, was his reply. He was travelling alone, around 40 years old, spoke good English but seemed to be a bit of a dick! I said bye to the guys and went to the next coach and found my seat. A very nice older family was there, also eating supper. I stuck my bag under the seat and told them to go ahead and finish dinner; I would be back in a bit for my seat. They said no problem; take my time, very nice people. My seat with them was the window seat, bottom birth, a very desirable position. The dude who wouldn’t switch, was sandwiched in-between 56-59 and had the middle birth, the least desirable position. I went back and told him that he would be sitting beside a very nice family, had the window seat etc, come and have a look. He agreed and came with me to look. He was leaning towards switching until I pulled out my e-ticket to show him I belonged there. Well then he made a big deal about how the Ticket Inspector might make us switch back and went on and on with total BS. The nice family argued with him saying don’t be stupid, an e-ticket was just as good as his “normal” ticket. He would hear none of that and headed back to his original seat. By this time, approx 20 mins had passed, the train had already started, the chaos was starting to die down. I started to get settled down with my nice family when “Dick” suddenly showed up and switched with me. Go figure. Nobody had asked him again, I don’t know what his deal was but we ended up all together.
Now as far as where we were, it wasn’t great. We were the last section where the corridor door opens up to let people to the BR and to the next coach. That door was constantly opening and closing, the air-conditioned air didn’t have time to cool off our section before the door opened again! Plus the noise of the door plus Randy’s feet sticking out into the doorway and him having to always be moving them when he wasn’t careful. This was a long night. We got to “sleep” with lights out about 2200. I was up out of bed by 0300 and never went back to sleep. Randy got up around 0400. The family sharing our section was getting all their stuff together, their station was at 0500. After they got off, we had lots of room. We put the middle births back down and could sit properly. Merv and James stayed up on top till around 0600. It was light by this time so we stood out in the open doorway and took some pictures, just enjoyed the cool morning air. This was the best part of train travel in India, being able to stand or sit in the open doorway of the moving train. Awesome! You can’t beat it. It’s like the dog hanging out the window of a car, loving life!! Ahhhh!
Our train made up the hour overnight and we arrived in Aluva at 0900. Our driver was waiting for us at the station with a sign for “Mr Randi”. He escorted us to a beautiful white SUV, a Toyota Innuva, and our journey to Munnar began. That is another story…….