Very First Train Trip

Written on March 5th Monday night at 11:00 pm

Now I am on the Konark Express, departed from Mumbai at 3:00 pm on Monday afternoon March 5th, scheduled to arrive in Hyderabad at 8:00 in the morning if no delay (which I don’t have much hopes though) Bhargav from AIESEC Hyderabad will pick me from the train station.

Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Station       Families waiting at the stations

Another reason to love the trains in India is the amazing people you get to meet. Unlike my previous train trips in India, this time my compartment was full of Indians, I didn’t see any international on board so far.

I have a good seat in the second class with a cool travel company, Molkan(?) who is doing Organic Food Business with companies from Germany particularly from Nurnberg. When he learnt that my former boss is from Nurnberg, we ended up talking about Nurnberg and German people for hours on the train.

My 2 travel companies, Molkan & Anandvin

In Lonavla, 2nd station after Mumbai, Anandvin, a young guy got on the train. He is doing masters on sailing in Lonavla on top of the bachelor’s degree in engineering in Chennai. On the way back home for a 2 week leave, he was sitting right across me as he would be staying on the upper deck of the berth. He is a kind, well educated young guy who lived abroad for 8 years to follow his financial advisor father’s career.


Suggestions From a Local : 

        

Sushmita Sen (Anandvin's fav actress)     Kal Ho Naa Ho (His favourite Bwood movie)

We had a long chat with Anandvin until I went to bed around 11pm. We talked about his job, my job, his dreams, my dreams, his family, my life back in Turkey and Belgium and of course Bollywood movies. He suggested me to watch Kal Ho Naa Ho, which I heard a lot before but didn’t have the chance to see yet. Other suggestions from him was to listen to A R Rahman’s music (which I knew from Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack), check out the music of the movie Dil Se (which was done by A R Rahman again) and Caxnatic type of music, To read Arundati Roy books and the novel the White Tiger. They were all Indian and his first answer when I asked him to suggest me his favourite local artists.

View at night from my bed                Veggie Meal served on the train 

Meanwhile I tried the veggie food served on the train which costed 45 Rupees (around 70 Euro cents). It tasted OK, quite spicy though, I hope nothing will happen to my stomach.

There has been some delays in between the stops and it seems like we are going to be late. I have no clue how late we will be. (At the end we were late for only 20 mins which is nothing compared to my previous experiences)