Choo Choo poo poo

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We left Bareilly after having what we thought was a pleasant meal at a resturant specifically for families and women! The food tasted pretty good so we were happy to indulge in a chicken dish. We had booked our train ticket the day before which would take us all the way to Derhadun. On booking the ticket we were informed that the coaches were all pretty much booked up and so we were left with little choice but to get a sleeper class coach ticket which would set us back aout Rs 600. This roughly translates into about 8 pounds. For an 11 hour journey we were pleased with that. But what was to come next did not make us smile.

We arrived at the station promptly after our meal at the family and women only resturant feeling full and excited about the next leg of our journey. Got speaking to a couple of Punjabi lads who were really friendly and helpful. One of the lads was asking all about England and in particular about London and the job opportunities. We spoke to them for about 45 minutes which was long enough for a huge crowd to assemble around us. Everyone was very interested to hear us speak and to learn what we were doing out of England. The people here seem to find our travelling through India very strange. 'Why?' seems to be the most commonly asked question. (Calm before te storm)

The train arrived 1 1/2 hours late. We were totally unprepared for what happened next. The train was full to capacity! We walked quickly to what we thought was our coach (it wasn''''''t) and was then told by a man that our coach was back in the other direction. RUN! So we did. We pushed passed people tripping and wrestling as we squeezed through onto our coach. Our bags made this part of the journey very difficult and the entrance to the coach was jammed! We barged onto the coach probably insulting many people as we did, and walked into chaos.

As we had anticipated, our seats were taken (a confirmed coach ticket doesn't seem to stand for much). By this time it was about midnight and we knew we needed to sleep. We asked the people who were sat on our bunks to move. Feeling extremely resentful that we had paid in full and that we had to ask everyone to move, a sudden sense of guilt came accross us as the families who had taken comfortable refuge on our bunks moved onto a cramped bunk opposite us.

The journey was uncomfortable and extremely noisy. There was little chance of sleeping that nigt. At about 3am guards got on the train and checked everyones tickets. After 15 minutes there were raised voices and a group of people were ejected from the train. The group was a family old and young and as the train set off with the family standing on the platform, screams and banging was heard from our coach. These people hadn't paid and thought they were going to see out the rest of the journey without any challenge. Maybe they were too poor to afford the ticket, but either way their night was t be spent on a dusty platform.

Managed to get some sleep, albeit broken, and awoke to a rumbling stomace. The chicken dish evidently didn't want to stay down. Climbing over scattered bodies laying across the craped floor, I managed to find my way to the loo. Just in the nic of time! The next 24 hours were painful and extremely uncomfortable.

We eventually arrived in Derhadun and the pains were now almost unbareable. Tony had to carry both bags and find a rick shaw driver to take us t a hotel where we would send the next 5 days trying to recover from a very dodgy dish. Thinking that the bug had only infected me at tis stage, Tony tok it upon himself to take care of me. 24hrs later, the roles had reversed and I was moppiong his brow and running to the shop for toilet roll! Roll on Mussoorie! The scenery can only make us feel better!

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