Our greatest gift

The Indian Train network is one of the few things the British did right whilst we were here, and the Indians have taken it and turned it into something very special. After a year traveling around mainly on shoddy buses, getting round by train is a joy and not just because of the novelty factor.

Train travel in India is not only the quickest and safest way to get around, and dirt cheap too, but most importantly gives you a real insight into Indian life. It seems to be a distillation of the Indian experience. All that is good and all that is bad about this country of extremes and contradictions can be seen: from the happy friendly manner of Indians to their propensity for open belching, farting and spitting and lack of appreciation of personal space inside the carriage and from the beauty to the litter strewn squalor of the scenes outside the window. We learnt alot about Indians and India whilst on the trains.

The stations are amazing hubs of activity

Our longest journey was a massive 48hrs from Jaipur to Mysore, which we caught in order to avoid the aftermath of the chaos of the Mumbai terror attacks, or MUM TERROR!!!! as the TV stations sensationally reported. The coverage was bizarre, all journalistic integrity was slung out the window and despite our confidence that is was probably quite a safe place to be, we figured it wouldn't be a very nice place to be and embarked on an enormous journey from north to south.

We killed time trying to teach Nicky chess, reading and drinking a lot of chai.

Food was pretty crap on board, in stark contrast to what people had told us, the chai on board was poor too, so we snacked at the stations, grabbed cups of proper chai from the chaiwallas when possible,

and gratefully recieved the charity of fellow passengers. This is Nicky made up with some chedder from a fella from Cork. The happiest she was at any point in any journey this year. Nicky loves cheese.

Most of our time was spent just idly staring out the window at the amazing scenary passing by

There is some brilliant signage to snigger at too...

...and guidelines that are rarely followed

There are 2 main issues with the trains though; they are always late and a little bit grubby. Sadly the trip from Cochin back to Trivandrum with my dad Tony and Sue was the latest (4hrs) and grubbiest we encountered

It was a little too much for Sue to take, and she embarked on giving the window its first clean in its history. Good job she had some wet wipes