Training

We had yet to experience Indian trains, something we were keen to do, and it turned out this was the best way to get to our next stop, Agra.



Booking a seat on an Indian train is an inefficient and frustrating process. First, you have to go to the train station the day before your departure, and fill out a paper form. You have to know your train number and name, not to mention which one of the bewildering array of classes you want. Then, the station employee types the information on your form into a computer, and tells you whether there are seats (or sleepers/beds) available or not. If there are, then he prints out your ticket.

But this ticket doesn't have any seat numbers on it. So you have to go back to the train station on the same day as the train, and go to the reservation office. Here, you present your ticket to one of the staff, they go into the back and come out a couple of minutes later with your seat numbers written in biro on the ticket. If this reservation office closes at 5pm, say, and your train is at 10pm, then that's three trips to the railway station just to make one train journey. I'll never complain about Iarnród Éireann's website again.

The day before the tiger safari, we went to Sawai Madhopur train station to book our ticket to Agra. Our rickshaw driver came to the ticket desk with us to help (and for a good tip). For some unknown reason though, the ticket desk was closed for the rest of the day. In just about decipherable English, the rickshaw driver explained that he could get us a seat on a train to Agra tomorrow. He would bring us to the station, and take care of things there. This sounded good to us.

After the safari the following day, the driver brought us to the train station. That was about the only part of his plan that he managed to pull off successfully. He led me to the counter, where he ordered three tickets and I paid. Then we were led to the platform, where we were handed over to a station porter of some sort. When our train arrived, he started looking for the conductor. He never found him, and the train was about to pull off, so he just shunted us into the nearest door, and still demanded a tip for the service.



We ended up in a coach with exclusively reserved seats and no standing. Cue awkwardness and stern stares as the three standing tourists and their rucksacks blocked up the passageway. To make things worse the conductor eventually showed his face to inspect tickets, and charged us a fortune (in Indian terms) to upgrade our useless tickets. He also ordered an elderly Indian couple to compress their sitting space to allow me to sit my arse down. I kept a low profile for the rest of the journey.