The journey back: Weird train

Sadly we had to spend the last day of the vacation in transit. Our train was scheduled to leave Vasco de Gama at 3pm, so we had to leave Calangute early in the morning to make it. The train journey was spectacular, more than made up for all the inconvenience of the odd timings (arrival in Pune at 4am). The beautiful ghats, valleys and best of all, the Dudhsagar falls that we got to see from the train. I really wanted to enjoy the train journey like you can only do in India. First of all there's the landscape. The fact that all the windows open up and you can stand at the door of the compartment means that you get to fully enjoy the world around you. Then there's the food that's constantly coming in, plus the food at the railway stations. But there were a few realities to deal with.

For those that haven't travelled by train in India for a while, you're in for a rude surprise. There's now a "side middle berth". Our beloved Railway minister decided to lower the congestion in the trains by adding nine extra berths per compartment. I am sure it helps handle the load but it's not fun for the passengers who are used to the old compartments. For starters, the "ninth" man sits among the six passengers on the "main" side which now are 4-3, instead of 3-3. Also, the side middle means that the side berths are no longer fun where if two people are travelling together, they can decide to sit or sleep when they feel like - when the side middle berth is functional, the lower berth isn't comfortable for sitting.

Also, the pantry car took our orders for food and we ordered an egg biryani which was supposed to be served by "8 or 8:30pm". 8pm came and went, so did the regular food for the other people. Then it was 9pm. As it is, I get cranky when I'm hungry and on top of that, there was clearly something very wrong with the system there. Either some people were cutting in line in terms of how they were getting their food, or the food was being served to the cops on the train first. Either way, I was hopping mad when we weren't served by 10pm and I went to talk to the pantry car manager. Turned out the worthless staff didn't even take our order right! I was so angry I could have killed someone. After some yelling they agreed to send a veg meal our way immediately.

We did have our little revenge when we got our meal from a different pantry car vendor and the pantry car people who were bringing the food we ordered were left standing there with a tray of food. The guy tried to argue with me that since I asked for food from the car I should eat only that, I yelled back at him saying that the food we ate did technically come from the car, it just came before he brought me my food. He was left muttering to himself and I went to bed proud of my tiny victory.