Marking my territory in India

Well, I've successfully made my first railway journey in India. The trip to Kanyakumari was lovely...I will write more about it in an upcoming post...but I figured the train voyage deserved it's own separate posting. :) The trip to Kanyakumari from Chennai is approximately 15 hours. We traveled third class A/C, which means that there were three berths on each side of the compartment and no curtains separating the compartment from the aisle. The trip down wasn't too much of a problem. The train left Chennai at 5:30 PM. The people in our compartment were fine-nothing to complain about. We ordered dinner on the train (tho we had brought plenty of snacks), although train food is not really any better than airplane food...and the coffee is generally pretty bad. :) The amazing part was waking up the next morning seeing a completely different landscape. The scenery was much more lush and tropical. It was beautiful!!!! (Especially when opening the side doors of the train and leaning out...) :)









The trip back was also relatively uneventful. There were two young girls traveling with their father in our compartment. The 9-year-old enjoyed practicing her English (with a few translations by her father) with me; however, when it came time for us to go to bed the younger one, the 4-year-old, did NOT want to sleep at all. For us, it was entertaining...for her father, not so much! :)

The part of both trips that deserves mentioning, however, is the bathrooms. :) You might be thinking that the best thing to do would be to avoid them...but that is virtually impossible on a 15-hour trek. I should insert here the fact that there is no repository for train toilets-you just do your business and it ends up right on the tracks. (As you might imagine, there are many warnings NOT to use the toilets when you are at a station!) On the way down, we were lucky enough to have two 'western' style toilets (bring your own toilet paper). Unfortunately, though, one was dark and Liz realized too late that the drain in the floor was not working properly. EWW! Her pant leg was all wet and we had to devise many creative ways to alleviate the odor that lingered after washing them off... On the way back to Chennai, there was only one 'western' toilet at our end of the car. Once, when it was occupied, I considered using the Indian-style ones, but, as the train began rocking more vigorously, I wasn't sure about maintaining my balance while squatting (and I didn't want a repeat performance of attempting to wash out a my pant leg!). :)