Riding the Rails

(Luanna and the most amazing samosa you will ever eat... only available on trains in India)

So on Saturday we escaped from Delhi and headed off to Amristar. Because we left it so late to book our tickets we ended up with 3 seats in 3rd class (no AC). Which I was sightly dreading, but actually ended up being quite entertaining. The whole carriage is made up of 3 seater benches facing each other, but people just pile on, so you have four per bench and people stand up between them and in the aisles, then every time someone leaves there's a mad dash and woop to get any free seats. We were trying to be very reserved and proper about keeping ours, but some older Indian lady didn't notice and plonked herself down at the end of our bench foring me to shove ito the smartly dressed man I was sat next to. At every stop the carriages get filled with people selluing snacks and drinks. Young men run up and down the aisles yelling Chai Chai Chai, others carry huge baskets of fried snacks on their head and a stand under their arm so they can pop it down and sell you something at anytime. Its all quite manic.

Last night we caught a sleeper train from Amristar to Jaipur which was a lot more calm. We were sat with some lovely people, one of whom spoke very good english so he chatted to us for a bit and translated a bit of what people were saying around us. He was travelling with his wife and baby son (who was ridiculously adorable). I think the others in the carriage found us amusing, there were some bits of conversation the man didn't translate, but we could tell it was about us because they kept gesturing, saying english and then laughing! There was an elderly couple who were very sweet and tried to share their dinner with us. We've been having a bit of a rough time the last couple of days, I've been living off jam and toast, but they forced the food on us so we had to eat it. Sadly I threw it all up a couple of hours later... India is just so glamourous!