We are sitting together in carriage B2, seats 29 and 30. Above me is the top bunk where I slept last night, and behind me, now folded against the wall, is the bunk below me, and I am sitting on the bottom bunk. Yes, a three tier system, on either side of our small compartment. Six of the tour group are here, George, Grace, Peter, Anna, and Jennifer and I.
We left Agra station about an hour late, the platform crowded with people even though it was 9:30 at night. When the ancient diesel train pulled in, we trundled along the platform and bustled our way in, negotiating the narrow corridors and people dealing with bags and boxes. We found our berth which is about midway along the carriage and shoved our bags under the bottom bunk. We have learnt to pack our bags flatter and it easy to slide them out of the way. We pulled out the bag chains and secured them to metal rings under the bunk.

I clambered up to the top bunk, nearly clobbering a very forgiving lady in the opposite side bunks with my boots. I needed a final shove and I was up. It was comfortable as far as bunks go, but the head end was a bit trapped and I woke up with a neck headache. Luckily getting down is a lot easier than getting up. Now to face the train lavatory, any “stuff” goes straight down and onto the tracks – this is a problem when at a station. It all adds to the aromas of India. Enough said!
Outside the window, I can see mostly farms, green fields extending to the next line of trees, and I see a farmer and his family hunkered down on the ground, cutting the wheat with small curved knives, then tying the stalks together into small bundles, which they lie on the ground. The houses are of brick, plastered with mud and a roof composed of thatch. Smoke drifts and slowly twirls up from their small campfires near their front doors. At railway crossings, motorbikes mounted by dhoti wearing farmers, and agricultural trucks, all wait patiently. The boom gates are large branches, not the processed painted, timber ones we see in Australia.
On the edge of the road are sellers, there is one selling nuts and dried fruit under a canopy suspended over his cart.
We pass small villages, some of the houses are bare brick, some were painted blue at one time but now the paint has faded, washed away by the blisteringly hot summer sun and the humid monsoon rain, leaving a mottled blue and white mosaic of colour. The rooftops are used, it’s now 10am and the men have left for the fields or shops, and only washing can be seen suspended from lines above the irregular brickwork. There is no sign of any building code, precious little sanitation, and electricity if it is available, is cobbled from the nearest node without any actual electrician or metering involved.

I think all of us are getting tired. The bubbly enthusiasm of the younger crowd is not as apparent. Alejandro had a brief bout of Gastroenteritis, Johanna badly sprained her ankle, Anna ( Banana) has had troublesome urticaria. Us older ones are just getting tired. Sleep is a resource that can be in short supply, with noise an all too common part of the Indian evening. The dog chorus in Delhi, the dog fight and howling in the villages, the Hindu weddings that go on for days without getting any quieter and the noise of traffic that thankfully drifts away by midnight.

The bustle, crowds, hawking, scamming, fields of rubbish, the sorry toilets, negotiating prices, and tipping, all test this traveller. However all these things are India or at least they are for the foreign traveller. On the other hand, I have the company of our fellow group members and leader who are truly delightful to be with, I have met many friendly Indian people especially being photographed with them in group hugs, the exotic history, the stunning food, the locales including the forts, the palaces, the bazaars, the mosques, the temples and mausoleums especially the Taj Mahal are fascinating and occasionally awe inspiring. The pluses definitely outweigh the negatives but just don’t ask me about India after a bumpy night on the Agra to Varanasi train.
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