After spending about 2 weeks on the beaches of Goa, we were ready to move on to Trivandrum in the state of Kerala. We booked our train tickets. This was our second train trip, but our first opportunity to travel by 2-tier A/C (meaning 2-tier berth rather than the 3-tier we had had before). On Dec 5, we set off from our guesthouse on the beach and went to the train station (in Madgoan, Goa) to take the Rajdhani express to Trivandrum: 15 hr, 1500 km away.
We arrived at the station at 11:40 am. I always like to arrive early - much to Lance’s dismay. Our train was scheduled to leave at 13:00. But when we got out of the auto rickshaw, the porters said, “Train here. Rajdhani here.” Entering the station, we saw the train and yes the name was correct, and it was early. (Hint #1: Trains are rarely if ever early.) We boarded the train, and found our seats. We had berths 2 & 3, and another couple had berths 1 & 2. We assumed this was a booking error. (Hint #2: Errors do occur, but despite its staggering size the Indian railway is amazingly efficient with few errors. A few facts about Indian railway: over 60,000 km of track, 1.6 million staff, and the whole system moves 11 million passengers each day to a network that includes 7,085 stations.) We squeezed our bags under the seat, locked both bags by threading our chain through the handles and the cable loops that were under the seat, and affixed our padlock. (This is common practice in India. Even the Indians lock their bags!)
The train started to pull away from the station. It was only 11:45 am. This seemed very unusual! (Hint 3: Trains do not leave early.) I asked to see another woman’s ticket. Then it finally clicked! “Where is this train going?” “Delhi” she responded. Oh no, we should not have ignored all of those hints! We were on the wrong train. We were heading north rather than south. And of course, the Rajdhani was an express train. It won’t stop for nearly 4 hours - going to the next station and then trying to change trains was not an option. What to do?
A man who understood our predicament said, “Pull the emergency chain to stop the train.” We were reluctant to do this. Next to the emergency chain, there were large signs stating the penalty and fines for stopping the train without good reason. Vivid images of an Indian prison appeared in my mind. A conductor arrived, and we explained our problem. He reiterated, “Pull the chain!” I pulled it. Lance quickly unlocked the bags, unthreaded the chain and put it, along with our padlock back in our bags. The train started to slow down. We grabbed the rest of our belongings and struggled to the door at the end of our car as quickly as we could. The ground and the tracks below seemed very far away. But with little hesitation, Lance jumped off. As I looked at him crumpled between the next set of tracks, I was certain that he was dead, severely injured or at least incapacitated with a broken ankle. However, he was fine. (Later we discovered we had broken our French press coffee pot.) I jumped off and we walked along the tracks back into the station - only about 100 metres. Curious faces watched us as we picked our way among the tracks and plodded back to the station. If nothing else we succeeded in entertaining the Indians on the train. They were now even more certain that all foreigners were strange and confused!
We returned to the station platform, laughed and waited patiently for the south-bound train to arrive. The rest of the trip was uneventful. We had an entire compartment to ourselves, enjoyed the meals provided, slept well and arrived in Trivandrum on time at 6:00 a.m. The driver from our guesthouse, Wild Palms, was there to meet us. Another adventure, and another story to tell.