Part 2: From Trivandrum to Hyderabad

Taking the train in India is an experience you don't want to miss. Or I think that most of you do, but you shouldn't. :)

First, we took the train from Trivandrum to Kollam (about 1 hour) and it was probably close to what people expect when they think of India and trains: we didn't have seats so we had to stand in the space between cars with about 10 Indian men (for some reason, you never see that many women around). Which was fine. Even more so since I had my yoga mat that I could use as a buffer between myself and a man who wanted to stand very close to me - a bit too close for my taste. In addition, the doors were open so there was plenty of fresh air, which was great, since the toilets were right there, too.

In Kollam, we had plenty of time to kill before the train to Hyderabad was supposed to arrive. After dinner and walking around for a while, we decided to spend the remaining time at the train station. Apparently, having two western women hang out at the platform was somewhat unusual and the guards tried to convince us that we should wait in the ladies' waiting room. We politely refused and told them that yes, we are aware that we have to take care of our stuff ourselves. The train was supposed to leave around midnight, but - as expected - it was a couple of hours late. Waiting a bit longer was not such a big deal, though; we were both comfortable sleeping on our yoga mats waiting for the train.

After the train finally arrived, we immediately went to bed and I actually slept ok for the first couple of hours. After that, a bunch of people boarded the train from another station and apparently for them, it was already morning (it was probably around 4am). When I opened my eyes to see who these loud people were, I saw one of them standing about 1m from my face staring at me. Again, not a big deal, but slightly weird in any case. ;)

Next day, we got to know our co-travelers a bit and despite their somewhat dark looks (our train was a pilgrim train, so pretty much everyone on the train looked like our buddies), they were super nice. We didn't really have a common language, though, but the directness of our buddies helped: if they wanted to take a look at the guide book we had or our cameras, they would just reach out their hands and wait for us to give those things to them.

Overall, the train ride was much less painful than I expected. During the day, we mostly read, chatted and slept. And bought food and drinks that people were selling at each station and on the train. Although our fellow-travelers woke us up the second night at 5:30am with a loud morning ceremony with lots of chanting, we arrived in Hyderabad in good spirits and feeling ready for the next big challenge (or at least I did, Carolina was a bit more skeptical about the whole silent meditation endeavor...).