Jan. 19 : Bhubaneswar, India

Thursday, January 19 :: Bhubaneswar, India :: 2km today / 2679km total

24 hours is too long on a train in India. Especially when it turns into 29 hours, as the train suffered a 5-hour delay. I had a 2-tier sleeping cabin, basically, that means that there are 4 people in a "compartment", 2 on each side, lying on flat padded benches, bedding provided. Its comfortable enough, and certainly not the cheapest option (I paid $40CDN for the trip), there is first class which is more expensive.

The problem is that there's nothing to do, on the train. The train jostles and bumps around a bit too much to read (for motion-sickness-prone-me), there's no tv's or dining car or anything like that. All you can do is sleep, which is great for 10, 12, 14 hours... but then what? The food served is very poor, so I occupied myself with jumping off the train at station stops and quickly scouring the options, one eye on the train. A couple of times I hit the jackpot, finding COLD drinks and decent food (tangerines, etc), which of course only encouraged my foolishness further. And of course I pushed it a bit too far at one point, and frantically jumped back on the train 5-10 cars too late... I had to hang onto the side of an open, people-filled sleeper-class cabin (sleeper class means pack-your-bodies-in-like-sardines-class). By the time we got to the next station my arms were aching and I had had a bit too much wind and excitement for my liking. It was a late late 2 a.m. that we rolled into Bhubaneswar.