This is my friend Paulien.
Paulien came to visit me in India, and took with her -apart from an embarrassing amount of old Dutch cheese- an open mind and a great sense of humour...and thank God for that!

Here we are on our way back from Agra to Delhi. Even though I do not think the Taj Mahal is the most interesting thing to see when in India, Paulien really wanted to go, so I booked traintickets...Shatabti, executive class from Delhi to Agra and Shamti Express, second class (no first class available) from Agra to Delhi.

So we arrived at Agra train station; our friendly Tuctuc driver had told us the train would arrive on platform 3, and there we went. Obviously we did not understand what was being announced (not necessarily because they didn't announce in english, but because the sounds from the loudspeaker might as well have been chinese, too distorted for me to tell the difference). Luckily for us there was a friendly man in a little booth who supposedly was there to give information. I showed him my ticket. One-fourty, he said. Yes, I could see that on my ticket. But what platform? One-fourty departure! Yes....but what platform? Here or there? Yes...here or there! Platform two or platform three? Yes...one-fourty, platform two or three. I gave up.
Paulien by then was already on the floor laughing, being stared at by a group of older ladies squatting on a bench. They seemed to miss what was so funny, but we went on for about 10 minutes wondering about where the train would stop...at one-fourty!

At one-fourty a train arrived on platform two....it looked like a train for cattle, open windows with horizontal metal bars, so I went back to the gentleman in the booth and showed him my ticket again, pointing at the train that had just arrived. No, he gestured...this is a local train. Ours would arrive at platform three! Ok, we had that one narrowed down!

At two-thirty another train arrived, on platform three. This is it, we thought, and started running to find wagon E1, along with some confused Koreans and Americans...but no sign of a number anywhere, at least not one that matched.I asked a couple of people but they didn't speak english....and finally I found a smart-looking Sikh who did speak english very well and told us this was not our train...our train was delayed (wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't told me!).

Finally, at two-fifty, our train pulled into the station, and our friendly Sikh told us the numbers would be displayed on the little electronic boards on the ceiling. And Lord and behold! The wagon numbers WERE actually displayed on the little electronic boards next to where the wagon would stop! So we ran to E1 and waited....and saw more cattle-wagons pulling up....Paulien got worried but I spotted some wagons with actual windows in them, so I reassured her that our "normal" wagon was coming....

And then we finally got in. Our wagon turned out to be a sleeper, with a narrow lane in the middle and closed curtains on both sides. Obviously people were sleeping and obviously they were also sleeping on our seats! In India it is normal procedure to pick a seat you like, and then you wait until the rightful owner turns up....usually they'll leave you be and pick a seat of their own. But to give up my bed....then we took a good look at the sheets and decided we were NOT going to fight over it, so we let them be and looked for a place to sit.
Above one of our designated seats (half of the bench downstairs was taken) was a free bed....and finally, after not finding any other place to sit, we climbed up. This is when the picture was taken.....Paulien aLmost fell off laughing!

Once I climbed up I could see her point: we were facing a blind wall with a VERY dirty dusty fan (one could imagine what would happen once it was turned on), a pile of equally dirty sheets and a tl-lamp hanging from its wires....no window.
Our neighbour (who was in one of our beds) had opened his curtain just far enough so he could spie on us and our downstairs neighbour across the hall (who was in our seat that goes with the bed) had done the same. So here we were, sitting on a bed with our legs hanging down, our shoes no doubt in front of our downstairs neigbour's face, facing a dirty little fan and a blind wall....I don't think I have laughed so much in my entire life!

We finally decided that sitting upstairs HAD to be more expensive than sitting downstairs, where you would have a couple of hairy legs and dirty shoes dangling in front of your face...we scared him, I'm sure, our downstairs neighbour, because every time when we would stop (and of course it was not announced where that was) we looked down and asked him if this was Delhi. He moved further back in his corner every time we leaned over, sinking deeper into his laptop with Bollywood movies.

Our staring neighbour across the hall, in the meantime, was still looking. He must have had some great stories to tell at home that evening: two crazy foreign women, one with blond hair and the other with red hair so undoubtedly sisters, who just blabbered and laughed non-stop from Agra to Delhi! Once in Delhi it turned out he was actually an attendent who worked on the train! (Don't know what his job is...checking if the beds will hold?)

But it was very interesting. Chai-wala's coming by at train stations, chanting chai chai chai tea (once they spotted us) chai chai....a very nice lady who came over for a chat and told me her life story....in Hindi so I think it must have been her life story, but I will never know for sure....all these gentlemen that were not fortunate enough to sleep across from us so who had to go to the toilet in order to take a peak as well....and our downstairs neighbour with his movies and Hindi-music, who had to dive under our legs when leaving his seat, not sure whether it would be appropriate to do so....

Paulien, thank you for your great great humour! I have had the trainride of my life!