Night on the Indian Railways Night Train

I've long had a romanticized view of what long-distance train travel is like. Images of holing up in a cozy compartment or lounging on a cushioned bench; alternating between reading thick books, meeting fellow travelers, and gazing passively outside; and leisurely getting from point A to point B -- that's what I had in mind.

So when the chance to take a night train presented itself on my recent 2-week trip through India, I jumped at the opportunity. I took the train from Delhi (8:40pm) to Varanasi (~11am the following day), which took 14 hours (just 2 hours longer than the scheduled 12).

Now, before I get into the details, let me just say that I'm glad I rode a night train. It gave me a feeling of accomplishment -- I finally did it! However, I wouldn't ride a night train again for my Type A sanity.

Booking the travel was easy enough. The IRCTC official website doesn't easily allow foreigners to book trips, so I booked trips through 12asia.go, which charges a modest booking fee, but it's well worth it for the clarity they provide in the booking process.

When it comes to booking, however, keep in the mind the following:

• Choose your seat preferences (aisle, window, top berth, bottom berth, etc.) wisely. They cannot be changed short of buying new tickets. Note that for the top class AC1 sleeper trains, you don't get seat assignments until day-of.
• When choosing sleeper berths, always choose the upper berth. Even if you book the highest seat class, you may share tight quarters with strangers, which means that lower berths double as common spaces for much of the day. Being able to hang out in your own space and stash your belongings away from others is a key benefit of taking top bunk.
• There are so many different kinds of classes. Read Seat61 to demystify. Don't rely on the nomenclature; I can't automatically tell whether Sleeper Class or AC1 class if the fancier offering.
• Download ixigo's well-designed app ahead of your trip so you can keep tabs on your train's on-time status and find out your seat assignment, among many other features. I relied on ixigo to inform me of the platform number, where my train car is located, where my seat is, tell me where my train was during the journey, and when I was expected to arrive at my destination.

Delhi Station was predictably a bazaar, with lots of porters trying to pick up your bags and help you get to your train. Lots of people all over the place. Finding the right platform isn't too difficult, but identifying the right train car took a minute; there were just so many cars! That's where ixigo came in handy, showing you the order of all the train cars and where yours actually is.

Funny enough, I got confused even after getting into the correct train car, since my seat number actually appeared twice in the car (AC Tier 1 and Tier 2 were in the same car). I mistakenly walked to the Tier 2 seat first, was a little unsettled by how little space there was and how tightly packed the bunkbeds were. Luckily, I soon realized my mistake and made my way to my private two-berth coupe with lockable doors. Phew!

This is where I thought my seat was...

Here is my actual seat, in a two-berth coupe

Honestly, the two-berth coupe is about as good as it can get, at least infrastructurally. The things that made the train a less than ideal option had little to do with the coupe setup. Instead, they had everything to do with...

• Moist bedding: India in January is delightfully cool, temperature-wise. Highly recommend traveling during this time. However, this means that there's a fog that permeates everything, including, apparently, the bedding of AC1 trains. The pillow, pillow case, flat sheet, and blanket were all a bit damp, which wasn't very comfortable. Add on top of that the condensation on the windows and an aggressively cool air nozzle, and it's one chilly, wet experience.
• Stop and go, stop and go, all night: The train didn't go very fast. I think the average speed is something like 50km/h. What's surely bringing the average down is all the time spent at a standstill, which was a lot of the time. As you're (trying to be) asleep, the train constantly screeches to a halt and abruptly picks up. Definitely not conducive to good rest.
• Constant shouting from hawkers: To be fair, people are not shouting all night offering you chai, but the quiet hours felt awfully short. I'm sure I heard vendors peddling all sorts of food and snacks as early at 6am. Must have good earplugs.
• No internet: No WiFi, that's a given. But no cell reception was a reality for much of the journey. This was a little dicey since I relied on ixigo to tell me about train delays and updated estimates for when we'd arrive and on Google Maps to tell me where exactly I was. I never got any announcements from personnel while on the train (or perhaps never understood if one was in fact given), so I'm just glad things ended well.

On the flip side, I was pleasantly surprised by:

• Bathrooms: Not bad! Definitely able to go without wincing. At least in AC1.
• Security: I felt pretty safe, undoubtedly thanks to the door and the cable lock I brought to tie my bags up to the bed frame. But really, at the end of the day, everyone's just trying to get somewhere. Nothing crazy.
• Food options: Though I didn't ultimately order anything, I was super curious about ordering food delivery to your seat, which is a service that's well-advertised, but seemingly impossible to execute. How does one expect a Domino's delivery guy to get on a crowded train during its 2 minute stop to find the right seat, deliver food, get paid in cash on delivery, and hop off? What if there are multiple orders? I'm just imagining a delivery guy getting stuck on the train, ultimately riding to the next stop. Yikes.
• Power plugs in the coupe: Wasn't expecting them!
• Chill scenery: Staring out into the scenery that seemed to blend was quite therapeutic. Definitely enjoyed.

Typical scene of small settlements by the train tracks

Once we finally got off the train at Varanasi, we were a little tired, a little cold, and very much looking forward to showering at our hotel (luckily they let us check-in early). The station wasn't very well set up for Uber pickups, so we were heckled endlessly by touts trying to give us a lift. On top of that, we lost reception and couldn't contact our driver or figure out where he was. Even when the location managed to calibrate, we found that the driver wasn't exactly where the pin appeared to be on the Uber app. Oh, and it was pouring rain. Luckily, after 15 minutes, we finally got into a car. After all that, a shower was definitely needed.

Goodbye, train!

Originally, we'd booked another night train to get from Varanasi to Agra, but after the night on the train, we opted to just buy a flight from Varanasi to Delhi (~1.5 hrs) and book a private car from Delhi to Agra (it's only 150 miles, but it took 5 hrs; 6 if you include two rest stops). The train was cheap enough for us that we felt we could just consider it sunk cost. But then as I was going to the Varanasi Airport, I checked the original train status and saw that the train had actually diverted and wasn't going to Agra at all! I messaged 12go.asia, filed a request for refund, and was told that IRCTC could take 6 months to process it. I'm curious to see if my $19 will ever come back to me. Good thing we dodged that bullet though!

On a separate note, we did take a shorter daytime train from Agra to Jaipur, which was wonderful. Both Agra and Jaipur stations were so much calmer than Delhi. Seating in Executive Chair Car was great, and we even arrived in Jaipur earlier than expected! Ubers were also easy to call and meet up with. 

All in all, perhaps the train is a good way to travel shorter distances. But then yet again, driving between Agra and Jaipur is doable in the same amount of time for not that much money, but you run the risk of getting a wacko outstation (i.e., intercity) driver, which I got later in the trip in Jaipur and others have run into as well. Ah well, at least I can say I did it!