Staying sane on a sleeper train | An India travel experience

I have been travelling in India many times since my first trip back in 1994. I do enjoy the hustle and bustle of station life and the occasional sleeper train ride – especially if I am not in a hurry to get to my next destination! Trains in India can offer a real insight into Indian culture and hospitality too. It may not be the most comfortable of journeys, but it always feel like an adventure! The network is pretty extensive and prices are very reasonable.

Getting settled on the train

Busy Indian stations can be quite a culture shock for first timers on an India trip. The sheer volume of people at a station can be overwhelming in itself. It’s distressing to see vulnerable kids miraculously surviving and looking after each other at the train stations across India. As you pass by a beggar the urge is to dig into your pocket for change, but will this only temporarily alleviate their hunger or habit? Are they part of an organised ring and the money will line a ‘beggar-masters’ pocket and so keep them on the street? Many dilemmas, sights and sounds will surprise you as you travel the trains in India.

I always utilize the porters (dressed in red uniform). They earn a living by carrying your bags for a small fee, but also know the trains and platforms very well. They usually take you swiftly to the correct platform and often to the correct section of the right platform. Sleeper trains can be many carriages long and it’s a bit of a walk to find the right carriage. Your name (and age – ?) will be on a printout stuck to the carriage with all other passengers in your carriage.

Coping with the heat!

If it is blisteringly hot then 2nd class A/C sleeper carriage is the best way to travel, but the windows are often tinted and well scuffed so you’ll get a muted view of the urban and rural scenes as you go by. If it’s a cooler time of year then I forgo the A/C. You get barred windows in the non-A/C sleeper classes so you can buy snacks and drinks through the bars from vendors (best to have the right change in these circumstances) and take photos and watch the world go by, but the mosquitoes might fly in to join you for the night!! It’s not worth booking 1st class as you can only very rarely get a private berth for 2 (at the end of a carriage), unless you know someone with clout who can pull strings. The standard of 1st class is not radically different and so you still can’t buy privacy unless you book a luxury train journey at huge expense with one of the private luxury train companies such as the Palace on Wheels or the Maharaja Express.

Expect the unexpected!

Forget about western standards of privacy and personal space (or even health and safety) during your holiday in India! Carriages tend to be open plan with 2 or 3 tiers of sleeper beds against both walls and across the aisle. Toilet facilities are pretty basic and may not be too clean at the end of a long sleeper train ride. And then there is the morning throat clearing chorus! Loud and vigorous hacking and spitting in public is perfectly acceptable and considered part of the morning ablutions that will take place by the sinks and in the toilets at the end of the carriages.

It’s not unusual to see guys hurling luggage out of the carriage and then jumping off a moving train and in between stations too. There may be more luggage than luggage space and Indian families like to bring their own home-cooked snacks and packages of food that might be passed around at regular intervals and offered to strangers sharing the same carriage.

Keep your valuables safe

There is no real privacy – unless you cover your face with your sari, book or bed sheet. Security can be an issue as the trains are so open plan. You will sleep more easily if you keep your valuables on your person and perhaps buy a simple chain and lock to secure your lockable luggage to the frame of your sleeper birth. On some train routes there are stories of ‘slitherers’. These are thieves that come aboard and crawl along the floors when people are sleeping and steal belongings. This is of course possible, but not something I have even witnessed or encountered after many train rides over the years. People travelling without tickets will soon be evicted by the train crew.

Trust your instincts

I trust my instincts when in India. They have so far served me pretty well when it comes to scams, eating safely, haggling for a good price, etc. There are numerous snacks and drinks prepared on the platforms and on board the train. If you don’t want to risk them you can purchase your own snacks to take on board. My philosophy is if it’s recently deep fried and vegetarian you can eat it! If it may have been lingering in hot sun with a chance for the flies to gather then give it a miss. Make sure you buy bottled/purified water only. This can usually be purchased, at a slight premium, from vendors who come of board and from the platforms at stations. Check that the seal looks intact just in case it has been refilled with tap water. Hot sweet chai and coffee is brought through the carriages at certain times of day. You don’t usually get the option to have it sugar free as it is pre-mixed in big urns and Indians love it very sweet and sometimes spicy. In days gone by it used to always be in small handmade ceramic cups that you then smash on the track once used. More often than not it is now plastic or paper cups.

From time to time you hear stories of travellers accepting hospitality on trains such as a drink or a morsel of food and even a wedge of ‘drugged’ orange then waking up with all their belongings gone. This may happen, but it’s not a regular occurrence. Most hospitality is genuine kindness- again I just trust my instincts and judgement. Another reason not to accept food is you don’t know how it has been prepared and your resistance to local bacteria may not be great. Also in India, people use water and their hand to wash after the toilet. So….even though you use one hand to eat with and the other for your bum, making chapattis is a 2 handed job if you know what I mean.

Modesty (or lack of!)

So you might be modestly dressed and anxious not to show too much flesh when in India. Showing your knees, a low-cut top or bare shoulders might not be acceptable, but perhaps mid-riff is fine when dressed in a sari. You may need to cover your head when you enter a temple. You have just awoken from a night’s sleep and the train is still chugging through the countryside. It is first thing in the morning and as you rub the sleep from your eyes you’ll notice people either side of the tracks squatting and cleaning their teeth and what is really quite surprising to witness for the first time is a line of bare bums excreting, in full view of each other and a train full of passengers. Many people in India do not have a bathroom, running water and any privacy. So anywhere that is deemed to be no-man’s land can be used as a bathroom; perhaps the gutter if you are a pavement dweller, the shoreline at low tide if you live in a fishing village or the land either side of the train tracks near your village. When people are washing at a standpipe or in holy waters or going to the loo in public people do turn a blind eye to the amount of flesh exposed. In certain scenarios such as these, it is rude to stare.

Intriguing looks

Curious locals can have the habit of staring at you, and then staring some more, with an unbroken gaze, and often ask many questions. There was a guy staring at me on one train journey, intensely, as if I was so alien he’d never seen anything like it before in his life. Perhaps he was from a far flung village and was not used to train travel or tourists and un-chaperoned females? I hid behind my book and then went to sleep for an interval and when I awoke he was still staring. You do wonder what could be so fascinating. It was not menacing in any way, but it did get quite annoying. Staring and asking personal questions in public is to be expected and is not considered rude in India (depending on how personal the questions get): “Madam are you married?” … “What is your good name?”… “Why are you travelling alone?”… “Which country are you from?” (I acknowledge some bad stuff that Britain inflicted on India in the days of the Raj) and they say, “Yes but the Britishers gave us the trains!” Indian Railways is one of the biggest employers in the world and is one of the best things we ‘gave’ India.