The dense fog that envelops the greater Delhi area in winter had slowed the Rajdhani Express down to a crawl as passengers stirred with the shout that breakfast was being served. The fog was so thick, you couldn’t see across to the other sides of the tracks. With a delay of about 2.5hrs, and lunch at an ex-colleague’s house in Gurugram, my decision to book a hotel proved to be a great decision – sometimes being flexible and making it up as you go along works a treat.

I bade farewell to my travel companions and headed off confidently to the correct side of New Delhi station to catch the airport express out to Sector 22 and the Holiday Inn, where I think I’ve now stayed 3 times. Again my loyalty and status with IHG was well recognised and extremely beneficial with an early check-in, a room upgrade and a welcome drinks voucher, even though the booking was on points. I wasn’t actually spending a full night there, as I would leave for the airport at 01:00.

Lunch with my friend and her husband was delicious and a nice opportunity to catch up again with an ex-Microsoftie. She greeted me complete with woolly hat and thick coat, in the Delhi chills. On the other hand, I thought I should’ve put my shorts back on as it was now a sunny 16c!

I had decided not to go in to Delhi itself, there was no need and I was pretty exhausted all round at this point. I had booked a 90 minute ayurvedic massage in the spa and whilst it was good, it was not outstanding and someway short of the one I had at Kovalam beach.

I enjoyed my complimentary pre-dinner beer and then popping across the road to a fast developing commercial hub for dinner at a colourful trendy street food style restaurant. Final chance to at least register a G&T. Shortly after ordering, I was told by the waiter there was no tonic. I couldn’t quite accept that so called the manager over (who was doing a fabulous discreet job of keeping the wait team focused and on-point) and asked him if this was the case. He seemed a bit surprised and a minute later a cold tonic duly arrived with a very small amount of gin in a very large glass! Once again, don’t always accept the first answer in India, especially if it just doesn’t seem right!

I felt the need to digest and do nothing after dinner so spent a couple of hours in my bed watching a movie in absolute peace and quiet before packing my final few items and heading back to IGIA, once again setting off the handheld metal detector wands and being asked to lift my trouser leg!

I was flying home with the reincarnated AlItalia on a brand new Airbus 330-900 NEO, with stunning blue body wrap, in the luxury of a half empty business class, courtesy of a stack of VS miles and a bit of cash. The seat was fabulous and I slept for a good 4.5 hours until waking before breakfast as we descended in to clear air of Rome. Feeling somewhat re-invigorated and ready for a last whizz, with effectively 3 hours to kill, I caught the airport express train in to the city, finding the time to stretch my legs at a pace and see a few sights, grab a few espressos (a single espresso, croissant and another single espresso for Euro3 – seriously…!) and grab a big bag of Italian food products, well why not. I just about caught the train back on time to allow me to sit in the lounge for 30 minutes, enjoy a beer with 2 slices of possibly the best pizza you will find in any airport and of a quality that will beat the majority of pizza restaurants, before boarding another new Airbus for the 2.5hr flight to London in Seat 1A – that was about the size of a home jacuzzi. That would hold 4. Apparently, these airplanes are to be deployed later on medium haul flights and are being used on the LHR route for staff training. Nice win for my flight home.

Sure enough, London was freezing and it slapped you as you stepped off the plane on to the airbridge. Wanting to end the journey as I started, and despite having 3 very thin layers on, I caught the tube back to Earls Court, on to Wimbledon and then SWR back to Epsom. Being around 6pm, the commuter train was packed. I guess with my backpack and slightly sun tanned face, I might’ve stood out.

And that was the end of my 2nd Great Indian Rail Rover. It was enormous and at times, very challenging. 100% happy I did it and did it now. Many reflections and learnings, to follow!

Thanks for staying tuned and if you are inspired to do something similar – let me know, I’d love to help build an itinerary for you!

After the travails and woes had pretty much wiped me out, the wonderfully comfortable, clean, crisp bed at the blissfully quiet Intercontinental promised a long night of sleep. Instead, after crashing at about 11pm, I woke bang on the nose of 05:00. Seriously? Anyway, it didn’t take much to drift back off to sleep and I ended up surfacing around 9am, conscious that the Indian Air Force was putting on a show over the bay with the hotel having a rooftop and prime viewing point with things kicking off at 11am.

Breakfast was fairly disappointing but I was cautious anyway. The air show didn’t actually start until 12 and was enjoyable to watch, although the enjoyment was tempered by a particularly rude lady who took exception to me placing a bottle of water on “her” table, where she wasn’t sat. She took greater exception when I said I wasn’t looking for a seat but just placing my water there. Shortly afterwards, she barged her way in to the middle of another group and didn’t make any fuss about who was putting what on “her” table that she hadn’t sat at once. Anyway, the show was impressive and afterwards I headed in to a limited wander around Fort district, heading for one of the famous Parsi restaurants.

I really enjoyed my visit to Mumbai last time but there was a noticeable level of calmness to the streets. Of course, it was Sunday, so it didn’t have the chaos of a working day. And hence relatively few food stalls and big queues for the restaurants that were open. Failing to get in to a Parsi restaurant, I ate at a street stand – foolishly perhaps. It was delicious, cheap and had no ill consequences.

It would’ve been nice to spend another day exploring Mumbai, especially as I knew I would be leaving 32c and trading it for 16c in Delhi, which was merely a transit point to 0c or lower.

I took the commuter train from Churchgate to Mumbai Central and boarded the Tejas Radjhani due to depart at 17:00. Alongside on the platform, the porters were busy with the loading of parcels and packages and large bundles of who knows what.

The train carriage quality was a cut above all the others and I thought I could bank on a reasonable night’s sleep ahead of my return to the UK in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The train departed on time and charged out of Mumbai on a mission. Most of the time, it seemed to keep a very healthy pace for prolonged periods of time. Just after the first stop north of the city, the warm tropical sun slipped beyond the horizon and I felt a tinge of sadness that the heat it brought would not be felt again for some time.

The carriage was quite full from the first few stations, so the sleep front was looking good but alas, no. Admittedly I was coughing a fair amount but also disturbed by some pretty gratuitous snoring the likes of which I have never heard before. I may be got 2 or 3 hours again and probably around 02:00, I realised I should rethink the plans for my final day and in particular, the fact that I hadn’t booked a hotel.

Service on the train was excellent. I particularly liked the carriage attendant who offered extras to everyone with a big smile on his face. He was determined to ensure all his passengers were well looked after. He left a smile on my face because I thought he looked like an Indian version of Stephen Merchant, with a moustache!

29 hours later and I was back at Kanyakumari station for the relatively short hop up to Thiruvananthapuram (which I can both spell and say!) or Trivandrum as it used to be known. This 2 hour hop covering 80 odd kilometres was taking me along a very scenic part of the route I missed due to the later arrival of the Vivek Express. It was a very tranquil journey and typical Keralan landscapes – until the encounter at a halt with a long eared, evil eyed Goat, who stared at me from a patch of grass by the side of the line with some serious intent. Seriously gave me the heebie jeebies!

I think my original plan was to wander around the city but I decided to opt for the chilled out vibe of Kovalam beach, just 35 minute auto-rickshaw ride away. Uber quoted RS500 which seemed reasonable so I took that. On the way, I was told the beach was closed and we could go somewhere else. I’ve learnt not to accept such advice. Sure enough the beach was very much open and quite full, with a surprising number of western tourists – perhaps this is many people’s only experience of India? The sea looked very inviting but with an overnight train to Mumbai and no towel I opted for a traditional Ayurvedic massage and one that hopefully would be an improvement on the one I had in Kanyakumari. And indeed it was. I went for my favourite treatment called Shirodhara. If you are in anyway the slightest bit tired or stressed, this is just the ticket. At the very end, warm oil is slowed poured on your forehead from left to right and you just drift off somewhere right on the edge of sleep and back again, and then back to the edge of sleep and so on. It was 90 minutes of absolute pure bliss for about £25 and the shame was that I was headed out on the night train up to Mumbai. In fact, I was to loose the benefits in more ways than one as shortly after coming back down to earth from the massage, I could tell my head cold was getting stronger.

I stayed a while longer at the beach, writing up my blog with lunch and a Kingfisher beer – this time a more sensible 5%. I had some grilled fish with chips (not by request!!!) and a naan that was fairly average. I wasn’t 100% sure the fish was cooked properly. I was also kicking myself that I allowed the juice stand at Thiruvananthapuram station to use their water mixed in with my freshly squeezed orange when I had my own bottle with me. We will come back to that!

Returning back to Thiruvananthapuram Station, I asked the first auto-rickshaw driver how much and he said Rs500, which sounded perfect seeing it was the same price as coming and we headed off in a brand spanking new auto-rick. He seemed very proud of it and I told him to look after it when I paid him and said goodbye. I did initially think he’d pulled a fast one on me as the station looked completely different. It was simply another entrance.

As I sat waiting for the Radjhani Express that was leaving at 19:00, I could feel myself getting worse on all fronts. The next 24 hours proved to be the most challenging in many respects. Sleep was disturbed throughout the whole night with stops and very noisy boarding. I was too cold and too hot (mostly because I was top side berth, directly beneath the aircon). In the morning, not that it had a specific starting point, I felt sick, suffered bad continual heartburn and had a complete loss of appetite and energy. I could barely get up and it took me many minutes to summon the energy to just get upright. This little luxury soon disappeared and I realised that I would have to summons the energy to get to…the toilet. Yup, after 11 days – what everyone worries about when they come to India – struck. Instantly, I took to Enterosgel – product placement warning – but it works a treat. Avoided all food for the day and took 4 sachets through the day. It all made for a very unpleasant experience but I feel I did well for so long!

The change from the Radjhani to the commuter train at Vasai Road, just north of Mumbai was easy just a little slow taking me to Churchgate, which I didn’t really need, and I arrived at my hotel about 36 hours after leaving Kanyakumari, albeit with a beach stop! I rolled in to my one slice of luxury on the ground trip – The Intercontinental on Marine Drive – (although I have to say the Radjhani Express I am now from Mumbai to Delhi is pretty nice and bombing along at a fair rate of knots) looking and feeling pretty rough with a pretty grimey backpack. In a video call with my wife and daughter they both said I looked fine and sun-tanned.

I had been looking forward to a G&T but had no desire for one. I was buoyed however when I was told I’d been double upgraded to a junior suite. Product placement no.2 – I really love the IHG One Rewards Program and especially the Ambassador Membership. Thanks IHG! I literally indulged in a powerful, warm shower with lovely products and collapsed in to crisp clean white sheets (on a bed with a mattress protector). I’m perfectly happy to rough it – I think it keeps you grounded and gets you closer to understanding a country – but a slice of luxury is sometimes a necessity. That night was one of them.

At 03:10hrs on Thursday, 12th January, an astounding 81.25hrs after leaving Diburgarh in Assam, the journey/adventure/challenge/ordeal came to an end!

The Vivek Express crawled in to the non-descript, very much end of the line station of Kanyakumari with no fanfare and few passengers. I have no sense whether anyone else had made the complete trip but I suspect not. A couple of western tourists – the first I have seen since landing in Delhi, rode a few stops but jumped off before the end, as if they couldn’t care for the significance of the train and the journey it had just completed.

The juddering of the locomotive had seemed to get worse as we inched towards the final stop. It seemed to be a train that ran out of steam a long way from home and all the characters on board no longer wanted to be part of either. The juddery-ness and the rattling bogey left me wondering what the issue was and whether it would ever be inspected and had I been riding my luck on this train.

The very late arrival didn’t present a challenge getting a rickshaw and the homestay proved to be much nicer than anticipated although I slept for barely a couple of hours and woke with a really bad headache, full of a head cold. The breakfast offering was sadly limited to Idly Vada, I don’t have a dislike of it but the absence of fruit or curd was disappointing.

Kanyakumari is full of tourist-tat and a lot of litter which is a real shame as there is a strong feeling that you are somewhere locationally special. It is full of devotees adding a lot of colour to the town, particularly the ladies typically wearing bright red and orange saris, and complimented by men in black wraps with gold trimming. A lot of male devotees were keen to say hello and other than a fair few child beggars sadly, it was a town low on hassle.

After scoping out Sunset Point and the Sunrise Point, and wandering through the tacky stalls, I thought an ayurvedic massage would be restorative. There didn’t seem to be too many places around and unfortunately the place I chose, at a hotel, was average at best. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good massage, it just didn’t get close to some of the amazing ayurvedic massages I have had.

I returned to the hotel for a little while before heading off to Sunset Point, managing a quick swim in the water which was a perfect temperature. Hard to imagine it is early January, especially when everyone is freezing at home. Sorry! I was subsequently told by an Indian lady that my face had gone red. As the sun edged towards the horizon, the little cove I was sat at became increasingly crowded to watch the setting around 18:15 and as it sank, the long journey felt a distant memory already.

I found a place for a long awaited beer on the tatty market stall strip leading to Sunrise Point and once sat, couldn’t be bothered to get up and decided to eat there. Drinking two large British Empire (!) beers at 8% went straight to my head. Dinner was an excellent Malabar dry fried prawns which I am determined to recreate at home. It was bang on. Especially sat in such lovely warmth at night, something my wife and I miss from our Asia days (and Mediterranean holidays).

Night 3 goes down as one of the worse nights EVER. The Nytol did not save me. And as I write this, we have passed the 72hr mark and the end point should be 2 hours away. It isn’t. It’s about 7 hours away. The train feels like it has given up the will to live. It is going to have to drag it’s sorry self across the finishing line. It has at least emptied out and is a lot quieter. Perhaps everyone else gave up on it. But I will see it through to the end. Assuming it has the energy to make it there!

Anyway, perhaps I’m just now in a grouchy this has been a ridiculously long trip without any decent sleep kinda mood. Last night was a shocker, impossible to sleep. Firstly, the locomotive was changed and it quite frequently judders so much so that my laptop almost feel off my lap. Secondly, my neighbours, as lovely as they were, didn’t seem that interested in anything other than occasional bouts of sleep interspersed with music, religious readings, talking loudly between themselves, then both joining a number of calls on speaker phone call, all the while with the berth light on full. I waived them off at Coimbatore by this point realising that we were now looking at a substantially late arrival. The place I’m staying who have been pinging me over the last few days asking me when I am arriving, have now gone strangely quiet when I said it was likely to be 04:00. A few reviews give me some nervousness about whether there will be a room or not but my head is now pounding so much that I can’t think about that possibility. Kanyakumari seems pretty limited on the hotel and eating options which is odd given its incredible location.

So basically this last part of the journey has dragged and as a result of the late running, I have missed out on the part I was really looking forward to seeing through a train window – Kerala. As a family we came here just a year and a half ago and I remember seeing a couple of trains and thinking what a great ride it would make. The return trip back from Trivandrum up to Mumbai takes a slightly different direction and in any event, it will be at night. So a bit miffed but really all I want to do is have a break from train food, have a shave, sleep decently (what with the arrival time it will be a short night), shower (instead of using Baby wipes to maintain some level of cleanliness…they’ve worked pretty well I feel), eat some more fruit and veg and most of all, get some exercise in. Oh and a cold beer would go down a treat.

My first night on the Vivek Express saw a supper of Chicken Biryani and about 3 cups of chai. Countless people boarding including some screaming children and some very loud snoring meant for a poor night’s sleep on the 11hrs back down to Guwahati. When I did wake after a slightly prolonged period of sleep I had been joined by a family from West Bengal. For the 5th day running, breakfast was omelette with a few cups of chai, the first of which had given me a suitable jolt of sugar to wake up.

As we crossed over a very foggy Brahmaputra the train started to enter the narrow section between Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal, I got talking to the family and learned they were headed to a dance competition for their eldest daughter. She was 14 and spoke good English and she took great pride in showing me some videos of her dance performances. One of a classical dances, with intricate feet, fingers and head movements, was excellent and she had come second in the competition. I wished her luck as they jumped off at New Alipurduar. They had travelled over 500km to attend the event.

My new berth companions are equally friendly, sharing some of their food with me and we’ve had a basic level of conversation. Wearing shorts on this trip, the gentleman noticed the scar on my leg/knee so I showed him the pictures of the Xrays from my phone and it appeared he had similar knee challenges and brought out a collection of products which he is using to relieve his pain.

There is a constant flow of sellers of all sorts of things throughout the journey – children’s toys, scarves cum bed sheets, electrical equipment (including headphones – wish I’d bought a few to hand out to some fellow passengers!!), as well as various food and drink offerings. Every stop at a station is met with additional food sellers who do a brisk trade. I chanced it with a Bhel Puri seller yesterday and that all seems to have worked out fine (guessing I am carrying some level of resistance following my last trip?) and was very tasteful. It was explained to me that the puffed rice is the Indian equivalent of pop corn.

My second night’s sleep proved to be better, with the help of Nytol. A breakfast of – well I’m sure you can guess – bread omelette and some fresh tangerines went down well.

After 2 onboard lunch and dinner meals from ICTRC, one chicken, one fish, I decided to skip their lunch and dinner offerings today. From the platform I got a cold biryani – with 2 eggs (like I needed more) and will see what’s on offer later. With the lack of any real exercise, other than some movement on platforms where we have a 5 minute stop, I am beginning to feel in rather veg-like state.

The landscape has been fairly monotonous as we’ve headed through Bihar and in to West Bengal and now Odisha – along the eastern coast, a route I covered in the opposite direction when on my last trip I travelled from Chennai to Kolkata and it has become a little tiring with my berth companions playing a lot of videos loudly and taking calls on the speaker! The coach has also become a little more cramped with peoples belongings. My bum is also quite sore!!

I have spoken to a couple of other people in this coach, which is sandwiched in between 3 tier air con and general sleeper class, which appears packed to the rafters. One boy, 15, is travelling to a hospital over 1,500 miles away from where he lives, and a relatively young lady travelling alone for a pilgrimage to Tamil Nadu. I asked her whether this was unusual for a single lady to be travelling such a long way on her own and she agreed but said she had the confidence to do it which I said was great. I told her of my own daughter spending a month in India when she was 18 and she was equally impressed. Having photos on your phone really helps to strike up conversations with people.

Darkness is now descending as I head for my 3rd night on the train. I feel myself also a lit bit train-lagged. My head is a bit fuzzy and probably suffering a bit from the lack of real movement and being within the same bubble now for coming up to 48 hours. We’re currently about 3 hours late so that will make for a long day tomorrow but I am particularly looking forward to travelling down through Kerala where we all came on holiday in 2022. Hopefully, I can get another half decent night’s sleep. I don’t mind reaching for the Nytol again. As needs must.

I guess I will put my 2 day stay in Dibrugarh down to being just one of those unique Indian experiences. May be some poor planning on my part and having differing expectations of what a homestay should be, combined with an awful lot of miscommunication. Whilst it all makes for a good story, I left slightly annoyed by the fact I’d wasted time and money and not taken a good look around at a tea estate (“TE”), despite staying opposite one for 2 nights.

Anyway, before that, I took my first rail journey of this trip and whilst I am coming back the same way on the Vivek Express, it will be dark at that time which had driven the decision to fly to Guwahati and start from there. The LTT Dibrugarh Express had originated in Mumbai and was due to leave at 08:45 to cover the 337km journey in just over 11.5hrs. I had tracked the train and it appeared to be running only slightly late so I planned on getting to the station at 08:00. On checking out from the hotel I couldn’t get an Uber and was told there was a bus strike so demand for auto-ricks and Ubers was high. Fortunately, I managed to get an auto-rick fairly quickly and was at the station in good time. The train wasn’t indicated however so I waited on the platform given in my Indian train booking/tracking app (which is superb). I got speaking to a couple of people including a gentleman on a train waiting at a platform who told me his dream was to visit Lords Cricket Ground. After lots of handshaking he was more than happy for me to take the picture below. It is an instant favourite.

Then panic set-in. Over a cup of chai, I was told that the train had left and then by someone else that the train was not running. Fortunately, I caught a station announcement that the train was arriving on another platform. The journey was very scenic throughout as the train ambled up deeper in to the north eastern region of Assam, eventually revealing endless tea estates for which the region is know for.

India presents a story at every turn, every adventure – each with incredible pictures to support that story.

A little late, we arrived in to Dibrugarh. The owner of the homestay had told me there was a strike and he couldn’t arrange for his usual rickshaw driver to pick me up. There was however no shortage of rickshaw drivers at the station and after the first asked for Rs300, when the owner had indicated it should cost between Rs100 and Rs150, I agreed Rs200 and within 15 minutes I was at the homestay. One of the beauties of having cell data is that you can check whether you are being taken in the right direction instead of some wild goose chase. I thought this was about to happen when the driver took a very dubious turn down an unmade road and stopped. I think he just wanted to check the place I was staying on the map and it appeared he had taken a correct short-cut, albeit a very uncomfortable one!

The home-stay felt tired, lacking the over-sight of it’s manager and was missing on a couple of the basics to make a stay truly comfortable, but I’ll spare you the Trip Advisor review! I had hoped to eat there twice but there was a mis-communication on the first night and that was an indication of what was to come. Instead, I wandered in to the dark streets and found what proved to be a very good veg restaurant and had a fabulous masala dosa. Afterwards, I headed across the road to a chai spot which had a number of people drinking tea and got speaking to a man whose Uncle lived just outside of London – in Birmingham!

Waking in the morning to a view over the neighbouring tea estate was very nice and I decided to wander in to town and end up with a walk along the banks of the Brahmaputra. The in-charge of the homestay offered to take me via his family home which was a lovely experience. I was then dropped off in town but Dibrugarh didn’t reveal too much to me in this short time. The walk along the Brahmaputra was relaxing and enjoyable but tainted by the amount of rubbish everywhere, which seems to be worse here than other cities. I could be wrong. It is a bit hard to understand people sat having a picnic surrounded by rubbish and then probably contributing their leftovers to the pile.

The detritus actually seemed to be largely made up of small paan packets which got me wondering if these companies could look to more environmentally friendly packaging. There were a number of “Clean, Green” posters around the city but not much attention is being paid to them.

The early evening plan was to visit the Bogibeel Bridge – the 2nd largest combined road/rail bridge in Asia – with the in-charge but that didn’t materialise and it was added to the agenda for the day after – my day of departure, together with a visit to the tea garden opposite. Breakfast had kind of been “set” at 09:30 and comprised plain omelette, 2 boiled eggs, 2 bananas and some pieces of apple. Perhaps more eggs that I could really handle and not sure why the masala and chilli wasn’t added as I had asked for the day before. Sitting in the little garden was nice as long as I kept looking towards one corner and not the extension work that was towering above me. The occasional fall of building material behind me did cause me to keep looking in that direction however.

I guess I should’ve thought about this, but the day was Sunday which meant the tea gardens/factories were closed. I was disappointed this hadn’t been mentioned yesterday by someone in the know. I did a quick search and found another one that appeared to be open and asked if a rickshaw could take me. A driver shortly turned up and I was told I could visit another place, currently closed but the security guard would let me in, for Rs1000. I declined. After that, I was then told that if I came out of the homestay, turned right, turned left, turned right half way down, I would then find a factory. I didn’t. I did walk to Ethelwold TE but the signs made it clear visitors were not welcome. The walk down the long lane with tea bushes either side was very nice however.

A little while later, I was messaged by the owner asking how I was getting on so I briefly described the situation. A few messages later and he said I could be taken 15 mins out to one estate which at least had a nice cafe but he couldn’t guarantee the factory was open. After a rather uncomfortable auto-rick ride, a little bit more than 15 mins, we arrived at the gates of a closed factory. The cafe was open, so I had a milk tea, nothing special, followed by a black tea – which I thought too weak – and some veg pakoras. 8 of them. Now, they were delicious – perhaps the best I’ve ever had – and that’s what Dibrugarh, the tea city, will be remembered for sadly. But at RS600 for the rickshaw ride to sit in a cafe at a closed TE, and feel it necessary to eat them all, with the knock-on effect of not wanting to have dinner even though I had 3 hours to kill before my train – it left me feeling disappointed in my stay.

The station was fairly quiet even with another train to Delhi leaving at the same time. On the platform I got talking to a gentleman from Nepal and then heard my name being called across the platform. It was a friend of the in-charge from the homestay. I thought he was driving back to Guwahati.

The Vivek Express – my home for the next 74hrs over 4,189km through 9 states, waited at Platform 2. It was pretty empty and we set-off, on India’s longest single journey, without any fanfare, other than my own excitement. My ID check happened early and the ticket collector barely raised an eyebrow that was headed all the way.

Once settled, I unpacked my fresh bed linen, blanket and towel (adorned with North East Frontier Railway…which might find it’s way home with me!) and settled down for the Arsenal vs. Liverpool FA Cup 3rd round tie. The stability of the connection wasn’t great so coverage was patchy but hey, I’m in deepest Assam, on an Indian train, and still able to get BBC iPlayer and a stream of quality as good as at home. And I saw both goals in the game. Both in favour of Liverpool. Result indeed!

WHEN I completed my last rail jaunt across India, I must confess that I felt that I hadn’t quite got my fill. Something seemed to be missing. It could’ve been that I didn’t take that many trains (6) or the fact that none of the trips were particularly challenging – it was all relatively relaxed and comfortable. The rest of the year sped by pretty quickly and included fabulous family trips to Turkey and a few days in Lisbon but the idea of sneaking in another rail adventure, before a return to gainful employment, grew and grew. I settled on an early new year departure with the specific aim of completing India’s longest single rail journey – the Vivek Express from Dibrugarh in the far North Eastern state of Assam, all the way down through the country to Kanyakumari – a mere 4,154km in 74 hours! That’s more like it!!

This took some planning, especially as this train only runs 3 days a week, it was relatively late to book tickets with confirmed seats/berths and the fact that I wanted to minimise spending on the most expensive part of the trip – the flights – through using mileage awards.

Availability on redemption tickets was limited to business class both ways – oh, how awful I hear you cry! – but I grabbed an outbound direct flight with British Airways (in their very respectable and comfortable Club World Suite) and a return with the reincarnated Alitalia (now called ITA) via Rome in one of their new Airbus 330-900 NEO planes which should be just fine – all for about £700 incl. taxes, which was a fair bit cheaper than return economy flights at the moment.

I landed in Delhi in the early hours of Wednesday 3rd January and, after navigating a whole new and complicated process to get a local SIM, waited a few hours for a flight to Guwahati, the capital of Assam. Ideally, I would’ve got the train here but at 30+ hours, that would’ve taken my trip a little bit over the 2 weeks which I thought was just about acceptable from a home-life perspective.

The flight to Guwahati gave some lovely glimpses of Himalayan peaks in the distance and we landed just as the sun was setting over the broad expanse of the Brahmaputra river. This is a piece of India that is tucked away up in the corner, basically between Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. It is a fascinating region with wildlife reserves, which include healthy populations of tigers and rhinos, together with the tea estates, means it is an area that I feel I am not doing any degree of justice to – but one that will therefore be worthy of a much longer, and not solo, revisit at some point.

The Vivek Express starts in Dibrugarh and comes back through Guwahati however as this part is during the night, I decided to start in Guwahati in order to enjoy this scenic part of the journey during daylight hours. This has meant a full day’s stay in Guwahati which on first impressions – seems to be a city with very challenging traffic and road problems. A 9km journey today took an hour although as my sister remarked – it can almost take that amount of time to travel the same distance in London. She’s not wrong, but at least it’s a bit quieter!

The day here was fine. I managed to sleep well after the 23.5 hour door to door journey (starting with a train from Epsom to Wimbledon, tube to Earls Court and then on to LHR T5) and walked along the sandy banks of the Brahmaputra (sounds a little more romantic than it really was) before taking a small boat to Peacock Island to visit the Umananda temple. Apparently it is the smallest inhabited river island in the world. The temple was busy with many devotees but a temple guardian took me to skip the very long line and view the sanctorum. That was very kind but I felt rather awkward as I was merely peering at proceedings as a non-Hindu rather than as a worshipper. All the same, the people in the queue seemed understanding with this arrangement and I made a suitable donation to the temple.

From there I took an electric auto-rickshaw to the temple complex of Kamakhya, high in the hills above the city. The saffron robes of devotees against the backdrop of the setting sun on the temple roof captured one part of the compelling and infectious essence of India. The whole complex, complete with some rather unhealthy looking goats and scavenging monkeys, oozed a calm religious intensity that was ruined somewhat by a 1 hour Uber ride back to the hotel. A complimentary beer from the hotel went some way to restoring things. I was glad it was free as Rs400 (approx £4) for a Kingfisher really grates – nearly twice the price of the last pint I had with a friend in the local Wetherspoons (OK, that’s not your average price of a pint place).

For dinner, I pretty much had the same as I had on my night of arrival – a local speciality Naga Thali with smoked pork. Oddly, I first came across naga chilies in a local “Indian” restaurant run by Bangladeshis in Epsom. At the time, I’d asked for a spicy pickle and they brought some naga chili pickle which absolutely rocked. According to wikipedia, it is in fact one of the hottest chilies around – so that explains a few things today.

Tomorrow it is time for my first rail trip – just under 12 hours to cover 557km. A mere hop. And I can’t wait to get back on board Indian Railways.

On the back of a great night’s sleep, I had ready a detailed plan of attack for my last full day in Delhi, largely built around the flight (which I had managed to change so that I could watch…) and the King’s Coronation. My planning had one flaw in it – and that was that I was originally due to fly home at the same time of the Coronation which I did not want to miss. Once again, lady luck smiled on me and I had managed to change the flight to the Sunday 02:00 departure which would also get me home in time for our street’s Coronation party!

A reasonably early breakfast was followed by an Uber ride back to the National Railways Museum which had been closed at the start of my trip due to Ramadan. Catching the museum at opening time, it was fairly empty and peaceful and made for a nice place to wander through and look at some interesting railway memorabilia, especially items from the UK and history of Indian Railways. I think it is accurate to say Indian Railways is close to me heart and I was rather pleased that I had made it to the museum and also that I managed to buy 3 cute little tea mugs from the museum shop suitable inscribed.

A quick stop at a fruit stall to buy 2 boxes of 12 alphonso mangoes to take home (at the airport I was asked a few times by fellow passengers if I was allowed to bring them in to the UK and confirmed that, according to the FCO website, this was possible) and then I returned to the hotel to check-out and spend about 4 hours in the bar watching the Coronation streaming on my laptop. It wasn’t the best place to enjoy the spectacle but I’m glad I didn’t miss it.

Once that was over, I decided one last push was in order and headed back in to Delhi to Kwality restaurant on Connaught Place, somewhere we had eaten twice as a family when we came in August. It was a slightly sub-par experience mostly because it is hard to eat as a solo diner especially when there are so many delicious dishes on the menu but also because by this point, I was truly spent.

Getting in to the airport was slightly challenging (the name on my ticket – Brian Crockford – didn’t match the name on my passport – Brian John Crockford – so the Army Officer needed some convincing it was the same person. Check-in was smooth but security quite chaotic and tedious. My premium economy seat with Virgin didn’t match the luxury and comfort of the Business Class product from Finnair. I was full from my large dinner but the food appeared unappetising (breakfast wasn’t much better) and service was at best dis-interested although perhaps that was due to the red-eye nature of the flight and the intent was to let people sleep. Unfortunately, the 2 people in front of me didn’t seem to be of the same mind.

And what about those mangoes? No questions in Delhi or from VS staff but the onboard pre-arrival announcement said that I would need to declare any fresh fruit and veg. I did so and the Customs Officers thanked me and waved me through. My family were very appreciative and the 24 lasted just 7 days.

Needless to say, the journey back around the M25 was starkly different to the chaos I had left. Boringly so! India. Simply spectacular. Simply chaotic. Simply everything.

My last train journey proved to be the least enjoyable. My berth was directly underneath a rather powerful aircon vent and I literally spent a freezing night of very disturbed sleep on what otherwise was a smooth, uneventful quiet trip back to Delhi. We arrived around 20 minutes early and I was anxious to get warm before heading on to the airport express out to Aerocity and my hotel for 1 night.

Back in the hotel where my adventures started, I realised that energy levels had hit a low. At no point during the 2 weeks had I felt any toil from my long journeys, heat or intensity of the cities I had visited but now I acknowledged I was tired so took some time to doze by the pool, refresh with a swim before heading out to Hauz Khas – a small village dating back to medieval times which has now been swallowed up by the Delhi metropolis. It is known for being a chilled place to hang out with some interesting ruins. Local metro links were challenging so I went for the easy option with Uber. It certainly didn’t feel like Delhi and was an enjoyable slice of relative calm until at least I headed back in to Chandni Chowk, wandering down the main thoroughfare, once again unable to resist some of the streetside offerings, meandering through some of the chaotic side streets and back to the Jama Masjid area. Being Friday, it was literally heaving and after having some delicious kababs at Karims, I headed back to the metro although things were so packed, that it actually felt a little frightening and that a crush could easily happen. The earlier feeling of exhaustion and a need to escape the full-on-in-your face experience returned and I was glad to get back to the peace and quiet of my room and slept extremely well.