This travel day was an interesting one.
We left the hotel shortly after 0330, heading to the train station. We took one bus in shifts since it can hold 40 people. Well, they were planning on us having so much luggage, so some people had to bring it on the bus with them, meaning people couldn't sit and we needed to take 3 trips. Why we didn't just have multiple busses take one trip I don't know, because the 3rd bus hardly made it. Luckily I was the first one so I have nothing to complain about. We checked our bags in the cloak room -- it seemed super sketchy but they claim its secure because it's run by the Indian government... I'm not so convinced, but I just left the business clothes and dirty clothes and things I won't need this week, so really if it's taken I'd be more sad my backpack is gone. I put the clothes and things I'll need this week in the bag I bought last night. Oh, but did I mention that on my walk to the bus I busted a wheel so I have to carry it and it's super heavy? Yeah that's fun but what did I actually expect for $7. We got to the train station about 0430 and the train was scheduled to leave at 0625 so we just had to wait. Going through security they had a particular interest in me saying I needed to stay behind and rub my bag again. I absolutely was not staying with them myself even if they had legitimate concern with my bag which I know has nothing illegal in it so I just kept saying "I don't understand?" And eventually they let me just walk away. I may or may not have fallen asleep while we were waiting for the train, and when it got here we boarded, about 0600. Well, let's just say it's not the first class ride they told us we had. We were actually in 3rd class, which has AC and bathrooms but is 3 bunks on each side so 6 beds per cubby. We were all kind of grossed out by the public bed/blanket/pillow concept, but they brought clean (supposedly) pressed sheets for everyone, and we were so tired at this point we didn't even care. We all made up our beds. I climbed up to mine, which is on the top. There's only 3 steps to get up to it so it's quite difficult, but since it's so difficult I figured my stuff would be safe. I slept with my backpack and purse as a pillow. We ended up being almost the only people in the car though since there's so many of us so it wasn't really a concern. I slept almost the entire way, about 15 of the 22 hours (yeah 22 hours) waking up to eat, read, chit chat, and fall back asleep. The food on the train was some of the best yet - it had no coriander in it so I was actually able to eat something other than rice and bread. Our train was over an hour late (not surprising) so we got to our hotel just after 0700. We will just be freshening up, eating breakfast, then on our way for an exciting day in Agra! I know I haven't seen much of it, but I can tell I like this city feel a lot more than I did in Hyderabad. I'm excited for PCT to get underway!