A honeymoon curry on the Indian night train

[John Ashworth]

A honeymoon curry on the Indian night train

From The Sunday Times
March 1, 2009

The horrors — and joys — of the sleeper train are many and varied. Either way, they’re always an adventure

Matt Rudd

You know you’re in trouble when it’s two in the morning and you’re trying to project your vomit through your legs on a rickety train’s lavatory halfway between Delhi and Jodhpur. And you miss.

And you were wearing your honeymoon underpants and everything. Rinsing the sick off those pants, legs and, well, you know, one can’t help but reflect on how the journey had started so well.

We had made it from our hotel to the station to the right platform to the right carriage in one piece, with all our luggage and with nobody, neither my new bride nor me, throwing up or worse.

This was a big deal, because we’d been doing an awful lot of throwing up, and worse, in the preceding five days. We had done very little else. We certainly hadn’t done much of what you’re supposed to do on a honeymoon. I had been out of action from about eight minutes after a warm chapati and chips on day one.

Day two, I don’t remember anything except waking up to the sound of worried, muffled shouting through a bathroom door as I lay clinging, naked and shivering, to the bottom of a hotel lavatory. (“Don’t come in, I’m fine, I can’t let you see me like this.”)

Day three, I reached that joyous moment when you feel you could manage a Coke and at least contemplate a naan. That was when she went down. I had told her not to risk the ice. Day five, we were both thinner but better. And we’d caught the train. And nobody was in our . . .

“Good evening.”

You only get big, fat, sweaty businessmen and honeymooners in the first-class compartments of Rajasthan trains. The thin, non-sweaty businessmen all fly. The backpackers go in second class. So it was me and her, both better for the first time in days, on our honeymoon, both feeling vaguely romantic for the first time in days, because you have to on a honeymoon, that’s the whole point.

And there’s a long shot of some canoodling, because, again, it’s a requirement. But then there isn’t, because of the big, fat, sweaty businessman, who, as the train pulls punctually out of the station, takes one of the bottom bunks after bouncing on it unpleasantly to check it will support him.

As we grind out of Delhi, and the houses and office blocks give way to mile after mile of slum, and we have an us-and-them moment from the top bunks, the FSB opens his briefcase to reveal an extensive array of curries and bits of bread in foil. We’re only just out of the vomiting woods, so this isn’t ideal. We politely decline his offer to share and grimace at each other.

When he finishes his noisy, sweaty meal, and wipes his moustache, his forehead and his hands, a miracle occurs. He tells us three is not company when you’re on your honeymoon and offers to move cabins. We protest quite convincingly. He tells us it is not a problem and leaves. Alone at last.

After only the briefest of arguments — well, not that brief, but brief enough, given we had hours and hours of train journey left — about whether I had been rude and inhospitable and unwelcoming, which I hadn’t, yes I had, no I hadn’t, we kissed and made up.

And kissed again and, well, one thing led to another. The one thing being an I-thought-it-was-safe chicken samosa bought en route to the station, and the other thing being the lavatory at 2am, throwing up between my legs.

Still, it was our honeymoon highlight. Once you factor out the projectile aspect of the night, you are left with the simple fact that a night train is a fast-track way to adventure. It doesn’t matter where you’re going from or to, it is that delicious mix of security (I’m in a bed, the driver knows where he’s going, I can look out at the world, but it can’t get in) and terror (I’m in a bed, the driver knows where he’s going, but I’m bound to miss my stop and it’s very dark out there, and why have we stopped in a siding, and what is that man with a gun barking at me for? I’m sure I have the right visa) that makes the night train special.

Officialdom is perhaps the stiffest test for train travellers. Border guards in exotic places love nothing more than to prod a westerner out of his clickety-clack-induced slumber with completely unintelligible demands. I once took a train from Baku to the Azerbaijani hill town of Sheki.

My guide in Baku thought this was a foolhardy idea and told me, on no account, to take any photographs, flash any cash or give my passport to anyone on the train.

So I was twitchy when the first knock came at 10.20pm. It was only a woman wanting to convert my chair into a bed (complete with starched linens and a towel — amazing how much more luxurious trains are than planes).

And I was positively jumpy when the next knock came 10 minutes later. It might be different now, but then the lights on Azerbaijani trains worked like bicycle dynamos. When the train stopped, the lights went out. So the knock took place in pitch darkness. I opened the door and two torches were shone in my face, as if this was the start of some extraordinary rendition.

“Salaam, salaam,” I offered and got four sharp questions in return. All I could say was “Inglis”, as much and as pathetically as possible. Then I handed the guards my passport and they vanished with it. Brilliant. First sign of trouble, I do exactly what you’re not supposed to do. Five nail-biting minutes later, they returned. More torch-shining intimidation, then the head cheese finally broke the ice. “Inglis. Football hooligan. Hahahahahaha.”

“Hahahahahaha,” I replied, thinking how good it sometimes is that our reputation precedes us. And they left. Nine hours later, I woke up in the Caucasus and had a breakfast of fresh pomegranate.

And isn’t it weird that the crummier the country, the cheaper the train ticket, the posher the train compartment? In India, Russia, the Caucasus, eastern Europe and, I’m told, China and South America, you can upgrade to first for a small percentage extra.

You get those starched sheets, the effusive tea lady, big, bouncy beds for deep, baby-rocking sleep or, if you’re not me, train sex. Sometimes you get dining cars and, if the first class is really old-school, Victorian porcelain abluting facilities (although why they have to put the sink behind the loo so you can’t throw up in it, I don’t know).

It’s a night you’re not wasting in a boring, nonmovable hotel room. It’s an adventure. If you get a compartment to yourself, result. If you don’t, stop being so unfriendly and share the man’s curry.

Overnight classics

Delhi to Jodhpur

It’s brilliant if you don’t have food poisoning, regardless of the potential presence of sweaty, fat businessmen. It takes 12 hours and costs about £45 in first class, including excellent snacks that I couldn’t face eating, but you might (indiarail.co.uk ).