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3rd Class to Varkala
We ended up in 3rd class non AC Sleeper because Saj was sure that we would be most likely to get confirmed tickets in this area. I won't bore you with the details of the Indian Railways ticket reservation system but I've had it explained to me half a dozen times and I still can't get my head around it. Suffice to say that you pay your money but you don't know until the day before you travel whether you have a seat or not. Our tickets cost £1 for a two and a half hour journey so we weren't expecting very much.
Indian trains are very long at about 17 carriages. But they generally have the carriages in the same order of class. So when the train before ours arrived at the platform we deduced that carriage S1 would be on the extreme right so we went and stood there. Unfortunately, carriage S1 was right behind the engine and stopped at the extreme left of the platform. The train only stops for 3 minutes so with our two big bags and two day packs we clattered off down the platform. We made 10 coaches before deciding to jump on and make our way to our seats by barging along the corridors, pushing people out of the way with our bags. We were a bit hot and sticky by the time we reatched our seats.
Everything you touch in India is sticky. This is particularly true in 3rd class where, in the 50 year life of the coach, no-one has ever cleaned the seats, the floor, the walls. You can actually see the layer of sticky stuff. We are beginning to be sticky. Our bags are sticky, the computer cover is sticky and the camera is beginning to feel sticky. Everything needs a good scrub.
For the most part our travelling companions were very pleasant. There was a young Indian couple who were going home for a family visit and a Finnish guy who had had a day out from Varkala to take some pictures in an Ashram. But there were three Indian guys who took their shoes off and put their feet on our seat - that wasn't so nice.
Eventually, we rolled into Varkala and a car was waiting to whisk us away to a better place.
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