Our Real Train Ticket to Ride!

If you google ‘train travel in India’ you go down a rabbit hole of  how unique the experience is and how to deal with mind boggling numbers of people, dodgy food, horrific toilets, delays and luggage theft. However it becomes clear that when Indians travel long distances they do it by train, and it’s a major part of the national psyche. When we decided that we wanted to experience train travel, all the travel agents we spoke to asked us not to! The plane is so much faster, and the same price and safer.

When we reviewed our planned journey, the middle part involved getting from the north of India to the south, a distance of 3000 km. The standard way to do this for foreigners is definitely to fly. But for reasons of wanting to experience India and reduce our carbon footprint, we were determined to go by train. Looking at the map there are lots of train lines, thousands of stations and it just made sense to avoid backtracking to Delhi to get on a plane. We did our own research and decided that if we did it we would go First Class in an air conditioned carriage on the Radjhani Express that goes from Delhi to Kerala in 42 hours. Our Fraser Street travel agent was the only person who said they would book it for us, even though they advised against it and would only book us into first class!

So after all that build up and a fair amount of our own stress of we want to do it but what have we done, on Sunday Feb 9, at 3:30pm we are at Kota train station waiting for the Radjhani Express. One complication is that although we had a train ticket in our hot little hands, we did not have a cabin or seat allocation. Apparently this is done on the day based on who else is on the train. We wanted to be in a 2 person cabin but who knew what we would get.

Of the many people that helped us was our train transfer guide Narendra who, on that day got us to the right platform (which was actually very easy) and then came on the train with us to talk to the first class cabin attendant about where we were sitting as it appeared we had been booked in 2 different cabins. Being in 2 different cabins for 33 hours was not part of our plan. In India, the polite and respectful interaction between people is paramount and the red sea parted and suddenly we were in the same 4 person sleeper cabin on our own with the promise that a new passenger would join us later that night. 

Our carriage has 8 cabins, most of which are 4-person. First class is very expensive for Indians, and comes with decorative features, such as air conditioning (always on) bouquets of fake flowers, wallpapered end sections, and lockable doors as well as curtains.

We were given a brown paper package containing a 2 clean white sheets and a woolen blanket. The train arrived on time and left on time and we were in a happy place after a few minutes of trepidation. And things got better from there!

Glorious Rajasthani countryside sped by us as we headed south and west. Fields of wheat, mustard, rice, and animal feed all grown at the same small scale as in the UK keep this country feeding its 1.3 billion population without the need to import food. 

And then afternoon tea arrived. Boiling water, a teabag, a vegetable sandwich, a sweet cake. 


Just as the sun was setting, a tray arrived with soup and rusks. And then dinner arrived, course #1 was a zippy cream of vegetable soup followed by a thali of roti, vegetables, zippy vegetable masala and hyper zippy vegetable stew and a plain yogurt and mango juice, and then ice cream! All very yummy. Although the internet says not to eat on the train, the trains have changed (as has India) and everyone we talked to who was in charge of keeping us from unhealthy food and water said that on the Radjhani Express in first class, foreigners can eat the food no problem. And we had no problem. We did avoid the yogurt and ice cream and sandwich with its mayonnaisy sauce as refrigeration is not common but everything else we tucked into, as much as our tastebuds could handle the very spicy food. 

At around 10pm our cabin mate arrived apologizing for waking us. He was an 88 year old man from Kochi who was heading back to Kerala as his sister had just died. He was lovely and very erudite having travelled the world as an engineer and sometimes on government delegations. To keep his bags safe, he chained them to the seat legs. This made us feel better about not causing offence by doing the same with ours. Our cabin is lockable, and we were happy to see he locked the door after every visit to the toilet, as we did.

India’s railway network was laid by the British before independence in 1947. Hence the sound of an Indian train is exactly the same as the sound of a British train. It was very comforting and the ride was much smoother than the Via Rail train we took from Vancouver to Jasper but then that was through mountains and this journey was flat, with a long, famous 738km stretch, known as the Konkan Railway, along the Arabian Sea, with views of palm trees, beaches and the seaas we made our way through the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. This railway line was finally completed in 1997 after the British gave it up, assessing it too difficult to finish in the 1940s. It includes 92 tunnels and 2000 bridges.

Our night was pretty decent and then at 6:30am we were wakened with a cup of tea and a Marie biscuit. Then breakfast was delivered, another thali plus cornflakes, mango juice and nescafe coffee. 

Now south of Mumbai, the landscape had changed overnight, with more lush green, coconut palm trees, and houses that resembled those we saw in Fiji, square cement blocks painted in pastel colours, with metal rooves (or terra cotta), gardens in pots, with space in between each. A little more prosperous.

Though the toilets were nothing to write home thought there was a choice of squat or western so we used them happily and frequently as we were drinking lots of bottled water to stave off head colds we had caught somehow in Bundi. Our Indian toilet survival kit of loo roll and hand sanitizer got well used as it has been throughout the trip. The carriage and compartment was kept clean(ish) by 2 young men wielding a bottle of cheapo fairy-liquid-type soap and a foul looking mop which probably did its one job throughout the whole rail journey without receiving a good clean itself. You do not want to be reincarnated as that mop.

We managed to eat our way through another lunch, afternoon tea and dinner before resting until our train’s arrival in Kochi at 12:50am. It arrived on time and the carriage attendant alerted us when the train was due to arrive and helped us off with our bags. 40 hours done and dusted. On time, good food, toilet not has scary as it could have been, lovely people, amazing scenery, really really good food (although really, really spicy) and lots of it, classic rail journey, our longest ever, and a very decent sleeper compared to those we have done in Canada, China, Vietnam and Thailand.