Train to Hampi

My friend, Ciara, arrived at Benaulim and after two days setttling in period (although I'm not quite sure she would have called them that) we were getting ready for our first experience on the famed Indian rail network. After saying a fond farewell to our hostess with the fishy mostess, Jessica, we bundled ourselves into a taxi and headed for Margao station.

The station was reasonably busy, and having both demonised the journey to the extent were we unnessecarily paranoid even about the smallest thing, two young guys scanning the passanger lists instantly became to us the pre-planned scouring of western names who would be opertune pickings. After some confusion and the asking of various members of staff who informed us of everything from delays and arrival times but not the requested platform we were to be on, a small cluster of westereners comforted us that we had actually reached the correct platorm (of which there were only two, how we would have faired at Mumbai central I don't know!)

Sleeper Coach 4

Our fine chariot the Howrah Express pulled in, around 25 carriages in all, and as we were designated sleeper coach 4 when we looked up to see we were in front of coach 12 we had an uncomfortable run along the platform fighting against other in a similar predicament. We found the coach and, once the two Swedish backpackers were ousted, we took our seats. The train is broken up into compartments of 8 people,. the larger having 3 bunks on either side and the smaller having 2 bunks which run parallel to the main corridor, we were in the latter seats. We had over 7 hours ahead of us and there was already an inkling that it was going to be an interesting one.

Not my photo unfortunately but you get the idea

The journey proceeded with relatively little of note for the first part, despite the constant wailing of the chai-wallahs and the samosa sellers. The train was also packed with beggars, children no older then 5 years old sweeping the train floor with their t-shirts and then looking for a couple of rupees before moving onto the next compartment and old men with various limbs missing or mutated, to say it was a bit of a slap in the face from the bubble of Goa is a little of an understatement. However, even a glance out of the window shows the contrast with the natural beauty at least of India, the train slowly chugging past the Dudhsagar falls, one of the highest in India which drops over 1000ft. 

The journey proceeded in a similar manner as this for the next couple hours until we hit one of the main stations and the train started to become a little busier. It was at this point my companion found herself sharing her seat with a little old man, much to her disgust. After a brief bit of jostling and and some various hand gestures the man, with agility far nimbler than his years would suggest launched himself to one of the upper bunks, he was swiftly dispatched back to chair class when the bumbling conductor arrived.

The fine facilities on board the Howrah Express

We were soon pulling into Hospet station, at which point there was a large influx of passengers on the train, all enquiring about our onward travel, unbeknown to us at this point they were all rickshaw drivers or hotel owners who "jump the train" in hope to pick up and probably rip off some naive tourists, much to the disgust of the driver who had picked us we shunned his advances, climbed in to what turned out to be the slowest autorickshaw in India and started making the journey to Hampi.