FIRST INDIA TRAIN EXPERIENCE|CHENNAI TO BANGALORE OVERNIGHT
High on my agenda for India was riding the train. Even though, I never mentioned this to any of my local friends in Chennai, I secretly wanted to experience this for myself. I have to admit this was highly influenced by watching multiple Bollywood films. The train experience purely seemed like an essential part of the journey in India. It’s important to note if you’re a female solo traveller, I do not recommend you to take the train alone in India. I have witnessed successful female solo travel via vlogs in India, but there are many cases where it hasn’t been safe. Therefore, I was fortunate that I could tag along on the train journey with a friend that also happened to be a local which definitely made me feel safer than if I had decided to daringly travel alone by train.
With that said, once I knew I was bound for a train journey, I was more than hyped. Upon arriving at the Chennai Railway Station at for the overnight journey to Bangalore, I was amazed at how intensely crowded the station was inside. Night travel seemed to be really popular among the locals there as the station was packed with families and groups of male travellers especially. Once we located the exact train to Bangalore, we also need to find the right train car. It is incredibly vital to pay attention to not only the number of the train platforms, but also the number of the car listed on your ticket particularly if you are taking an overnight train. The last scenario you want to encounter is having to change your seating when others have already settled into their beds. You can always ask the information center or any of the workers if you’re unsure.
Luckily, our seats were located a few stalls away from the doors which would make for an easy exit in the morning. A blanket, sheet, and pillow were provided for you to setup your bed for the night. The bed itself being quite firm as if you were sleeping on a regular train seat. Basically, one side of the train car was setup with four beds in a bunk bed structure (two beds on top and two on the bottom). The other side of the train car had single beds lined across it (two rows stacked – top and bottom).
Be prepared that you might not sleep as well as you anticipated and that certainly happened in my case because I had a person loudly snoring in my section, in fact, directly across from me, which made it quite the memorable experience. I was really hoping to sleep well in order to have more energy the next days, but this part of the journey did not go to plan. I still found it funny in the end and was happy that I got to ride on the sleeper train regardless of the “train fatigue” I later experienced.
The other key is to pay close attention to the travel time between each destination. As far as I could remember, there were no traditional announcements to be heard and it seemed like most passengers were just very familiar with the route and knew when to get off. I don’t know whether it was standard or not for overnight sleeper trains to make announcements, but I honestly can’t remember any indication of when we arrived at our destination considering we needed to ask other passengers regarding the time to our destination and even regarding the name of each station we passed. Overall, it was certainly an interesting experience and one that I am glad to have experienced no matter the drawbacks. But, definitely do not attempt to ride the trains alone and be sure you get local guidance whilst traveling around India in general.
