Thursday dawned fine and bright.

Chris woke me to ask what the plan was and when we were going to get up, which wasn’t completely ideal since I was sleeping well for a change. However it was really a good thing since we had to pack before leaving on a train journey to Kerala, and didn’t want to be late for departure from Carol’s house.

Pack, breakfast, checkout. Easy.

Mostly.

The residence only took cash payments.

So I had a ride on a moped to the nearest ATM. Which refused to allow me to draw 12,000 rupees (about £130). With both debit and credit cards.

Remembering my earlier experience with not being about to draw much money in the airport, I tried entering a lesser amount, and all was well. Multiple lower value draws seemed OK, but not single high-value transactions. Guess it takes a bit longer to drain the bank account.

So we met up with her family, climbed into the bus and drove to Madgaon Junction station for the train.

Views from the window made more sense than on our first trip from the airport, and what had felt like chaos now had a logic and pattern to it. The first time we were in India (2011) the culture shock was quite strong, and possibly because of that experience, it dissipated more quickly this time.

As an aside, we’re honoured to be guests on this trip, but want to make as little fuss as possible, so will be trying to generally keep a low profile. Our host has enough on his plate already.

For such a relatively simple concept, stations everywhere are different. Numbers and length of platforms, means of getting between them, fenced/non-fenced, shops and facilities etc. It makes life more interesting to see the different kinds of kiosks etc that are available, but I’m still surprised at the variety. This one was like a longer, warmer version of Bharatpur junction outside Delhi, which was the last Indian station we waited on. It was quite modern in a traditional station way with lots of places to buy food, escalators to get passengers up in order to cross tracks etc. I took a few pictures, but we aren’t on holiday, and it seemed inappropriate behaviour as part of such a group to walk about snapping everywhere.

And so we had our mildly chaotic train entry, starting in the wrong carriage & being questioned by ticket collectors (at this point we were on our own) and not having a clue what seat numbers or even which carriage we should be in. It was a sleeper train, with sleeping compartments for 4 people and no privacy curtains between. There were also compartments off the corridor on the other side, one up  one down. The young couple sat opposite, when we finally got to our seats, were pleasant, and had some English, which was helpful.

Seats. Beds. The sleeper compartment is made ‘as is’ with fixed bunks just about high enough above the lower seat for a European not to bash their head, and no padding for a seatback to rest against. Food was “veg/non-veg” (we picked veg as the safe option) which turned out to be rice, dahl, paneer curry and a pot of natural (cheesy) yoghurt. Later someone came past with pots of icecream (nice, like old-fashioned vanilla tubs) and others to collect rubbish, sweep and sanitise the floor etc. At least there’s aircon.

People continuously walk past the curtain to the compartment, brushing it open briefly, making me wonder if one will come in and ask questions about tickets or seats again.

Yup, it seems we've gone (luxuriously) native. ;-)

Pity the window is so dirty that seeing out is difficult.

And my bum aches after less than 2 hours. ;-)

Dinner came along in similar format to lunch.

Worth mentioning that as a 6 year old, my parents took the family back to Austria. That involved a 2 day train journey from Oostend to Vienna, and the train was considerably more comfortable, beds folding away to make conventional seating, sleeping compartments having closed doors and individual curtains around beds for privacy. And no mobile phones to beep, bleat, chime, jungle and receive telephone calls at 2am.