Well, I promised myself that I would deliver a light and fluffy post from here in Goa and that I shall do (but not before writing an un-posted entry on corruption in India and the West).
Our trip here by overnight train from Bombay began with an object lesson in what India is like. Our train was to leave Victoria Station at 23:00 for the 11 hour journey to Madgaon Station, our destination in Goa. After negotiating a taxi price that was just under twice the going rate we got to the station an hour before our scheduled departure only to find out our train was delayed to 00:20. We laid out some newspapers on the dirty concrete platform and sat down to wait.
While I would much rather have been sitting in the comfort of our 1A/C cabin on the train sipping fresh lime soda (sweet for me, straight-up from Mrs. WMG) as they did in the recent film “The Darjeeling Express”, the platform at a big-city Indian railway station can be pretty entertaining. First there is the cast of characters that make up one’s fellow travellers. Our section of the platform was a combination of backpackers, new-wealth Indian families and European hippies. Then there is the constant stream of vendors. We sampled the ever present sweet chai dispensed from a steel drum that vendors carry up and down the platform, announcing their presence with the clicking sound made by sliding their finger along the rims of the stacked small white plastic cups they use.
Between passes by the chai vendors, a blind man walked up the platform 
(dangerously close to the edge I thought) selling locks and chains that travellers are advised to use to secure their luggage on the train. He had at least a dozen of the shiny steel chains slung over the back of his neck like a kind of primitive necklace with the locks affixed to the ends hanging down to his waist. In his left hand he held his cane, clicking against the ground as he felt his way down the station platform and with his right he would jangle the locks advertising his presence.
A man with only one leg as a stump and the other bent around in such an impossible way as to make him only as tall as his torso and head crawled his way down the platform asking for handouts. I declined his first request, trying at least though to make eye contact and offer a kind smile. On his second pass he had gained a small vehicle, a board suspended just above the ground by four rollerskate wheels. He scooted along much more efficiently on this skateboard like contraption and as I was sitting on my newspapers this time, looking him eye-to-eye as it were, I let my compassion loose and offered my alms.
When the train finally arrived, there was an utter mob scene as riders in the sleeper-class carriages raced up the platform to board the arriving train so as to get the best (or any available) seats. Slower passengers would need to spend 
the night standing or taking whatever space in doorways or between carriages that might be free. First class ticket holders like us were free to merely watch the melee from as safe a distance as we could get. But alas, our aplomb was premature as we found that only my name was posted on the door of our carriage. Mrs. WMG had failed to clear the waiting list for this train and my name was listed along with three other passengers for my cabin, none of them being my wife. A quick search of other nearby carriages confirmed that only one of us was scheduled to go to Goa.
After a good bit of racing around the terminal, all the while trying to figure out what the backup plan might be, we were directed to the train conductor in the blue coat standing next to our carriage. He studied my ticket as I explained our predicament to him, writing something on it he handed it back to me telling me what I already knew, “She did not clear the waiting list.”
Now, here’s what I love about India. Had this situation occurred in England or Sweden or anywhere in Europe or America, we would be looking at spending the night either in the train station or if we were lucky a hotel somewhere and then the next day at the station trying to reschedule our trip. I said the the conductor, “Well, I’m not travelling anywhere without my wife, what can we do?” to which he replied, “Well, it’s not normally allowed, but you can share the same seat together if you like.” What this actually meant is that we would be sleeping in the same tiny upper berth bunk bed in the cabin with our three other cabin mates, but this was the best deal in town so we took it. Only in India are the rules fungible enough for my non-ticketed, non-booked wife to join me on our overnight train journey. You’ve got to love this place.
After explaining why the two of us were joining the three of them (an Englishman with his Chinese girlfriend and and a two-metre tall Austrian) in our cabin for four, we settled in awkwardly. The Austrian, who was in the berth below us expressed concern about the safety of our arrangement to which I responded that the two of us would try to keep the rocking to a minimum. He didn’t seem to think this was too funny but the topic didn’t come up again.
We shared the bunk foot-to-head and I got perhaps the best nights sleep ever on the train.
