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.
