On that midnight train to Varanasi.

We had spotted this on the itinerary months ago. Our previous experience of overnight train journeys in Asia had been OK but not the best nights of out lives. This time we were to be stacked three high in an open, mixed carriage for 60 with no privacy, food or water. Curtains have recently been removed from trains as a potential fire hazard. In a culture where people stare at you directly, continuously and without blinking this was worrisome for most of our party.

The railway station did not allay our fears. Quite the opposite in fact. Imagine a station about the size of Waverly. Now cover about half of the floor space with down and outs sleeping rough, most of them elderly and with significant mental health issues. Populate the remaining space with cows, packs of dogs and cauldrons of boiling oil. Sprinkle liberally with urine and various forms of poo. We found a spot close to where our carriage would pull in, placed our bags in a pile and formed a ring of steel around it.

A cow with a shattered front leg limp slowly past leaving a trail of blood. It had recently been struck by something big and moving fast. She looked at us balefully - she knew, and we knew too, that if she went down it would be for the last time. No one on the platform other than us appeared to notice.

I didn't take any pictures, it would have felt disrespectful. This was a cathedral of misery and when our train eventually pulled in we were pleased to leave it behind.

We were lucky in that our carriage was half First Class and half Sleeper class. This reduced our sleeping partners from 60 to 30 and considerably reduced the strain on the toilet. There was some confusion as some of our allocated berths were already occupied and the passengers had to to be shaken awake and asked where they should have been. Eventually we were all allocated a berth. Susan was in a middle berth and I was on the bottom. The carriage was full. In a way this was good because no one else got on overnight.

Susan was across from an old man wearing a wooly hat. He was wrapped up in his blanket like a body in a shroud - just his wooly hat and the whites of his eye showing. For his size he produced an impressive amount of phlegm. We thought that he was going to Varanasi to die there as many Hindus do. In conversation, in the morning, it turned out that he and his son were going to attend a family wedding.

In the circumstances, we slept reasonably well, the toilet held up OK and we arrived in record time of only half an hour late.