Getting a India train ticket experiment expierence...

Riaz, the driver of Tina & Falk (my sister & my brother-in-law) asked Falk 3 times in disbelieve, if I am serious about taking the train north to Gorakhupur. Yes, I am serious, even if it would be way more comfortable taking a plane to Kathmandu and cross back over to Pokhara (well, I did briefly check for plane tickets but couldn't find anything good).

We went to the Pune train station ticket counter, not the main counter, the one we went is apparently faster, because there aren't so many people waiting. That's true, there was only a cue of 20 people in-front of us.
Good!
No, not soooo good - but as well not sooo bad.


You can barely breath in there cause a busy road runs directly beside it, filling up the 20m² room with emission gazes, displacing any oxygen molecule. It smells - no - actually it stinks like you are sitting right into the filling pump of a petrol station. It's good staying close to all the other people, feeling and smelling that you are not alone, as well making sure that you will not fall down if you pass out.

It took appr. 1.5 hours to get on the ticket counter (20 peoples!), where you need to hand over your reservation form. The reservation form is there to speed up things ;-) The train officer handed it back to me, pointing out that some information is missing. While completing, the complete cue (now the 20 people behind us, and even if it doesn't make any sense at all) built up some body pressure to the people on the front of the counter, making it difficult to write anything at all. You need to stick your mouth to the oval opened glass, avoiding that somebody else sticks his head in it just to be served "faster" (well, at least the air in the office, breathing through the small glass opening oval was better). While writing into the form, you need to pull your hands back from the opening gab on the bottom of the glass, making space for anybody to get their hands in it immediately, pushing their reservation form in to get an ticket. Faster.



After it was my turn again, the counter officer made a brief statement in Marati (which I do not speak) to Riaz. Riaz left the counter where the crowd was happy about the free spot. I asked him what hapend and he stated: It is booked out on the 14.th.

Ok, no problem, having time until march, I am not in a hurry.
But whats about the next train, next day, next week?
Well, he simply didn't ask if there would be a free spot, he simply was satisfied after waiting for 1.5 hours with the statement that it is fully booked on the 14th!
This time, I was the one staring in disbelieve :-)

At least, we fought our way back to the counter and finally (after completing another reservation form) I got a stand-by ticket for a seat on the 15th, taking the 3 day Kushinagar Express train north to Gorakhpur.
Cool. I got a ticket, and if I am lucky, I might be even able to sit down :-)



...from Gorakhpur, it will be only a short 2-3 hours bus trip to the Neapli border, and from there a 9 hour bus trip to the foot of the Anapurna range, to Pokhara. It looks like I am going to spend X-mas there...