Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Standing 3 hours on a train

Just when I thought the adventures were coming to an end for this trip (it's less than a month till I'm back in Singapore), I arrived at Diphu station this morning at 6 to learn that the train (the Brahmaputra Mail) was late. By 10 hours. Apparently it was only leaving Dibrugarh at 10am, and would take about 6 hours to reach Diphu.

As L., who's from Germany, said, "Back home, we call that a 'cancelled' train."

Since I had to get to Guwahati by afternoon to move into the Guwahati University Guest House and to meet my Assamese tutors, the next best option was to catch the Mariani Guwahati Intercity Express - which my friends called the 'Mariani Special' - scheduled to leave at 8.15am and arriving at Guwahati around 1.45pm.

Unlike the Brahmaputra Mail or the Jan Shatabdi (the train I had caught from Dimapur to Diphu), there are no seat reservations for the Mariani Special. The scene on the train when I boarded at Diphu looked like this.


The train just got more crowded as it absorbed all the other Brahmaputra Mail passengers further down the track, and it was only 2.5 hours into the trip that I got a seat. It was pretty much forced upon me by two middle-aged gentlemen who knew I was a foreigner (like that should matter). I felt quite bad, but I was really sleepy, my back was hurting and they insisted. But I said we could take turns sitting down. However, about half an hour later a woman in her 30s or 40s came up from behind and demanded the seat. The men told her about me, but I ended up giving up the seat to her after 15 minutes. She turned out to be a lecturer in political science at a local college and she was quite lovely to talk to.

Eventually the train emptied itself as people got off at their respective stops before Guwahati and I got to sit down for the last hour of the journey. I also got to see a few things I hadn't seen before on trains here. Since I've usually had a comfortable set in the 'cleaner' and less crowded compartments, I hadn't seen as many men selling badam, channa and other snacks walking up and down the crazily packed aisle. There was also a pair of girls who got on while we were on the outskirts of Guwahati and started doing backward cartwheels and somersaults in the aisle.

We finally arrived in Guwahati at 2.15pm, just half an hour behind schedule. My voice went hoarse from yelling at people trying to board the train while people were trying to get off. A Karbi guy I met on the train and his friend helped me with my luggage and got me an auto to the University Guest House.

Overall, it actually wasn't too bad an experience. It reinforced my already positive impression of people from NE India as being friendly and accommodating.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Reserving an Indian Railways Ticket

For the past few days I've been trying to reserve an Indian Railways ticket for my train ride from Guwahati in Assam to Dimapur in Nagaland. I've tried using two credit / debit cards which have both worked when booking flights and buying stuff off the net.

So far, I have received a few copies of the following two error messages:

We deeply regret that this reservation (reference no.XXXXXXXXXX) requested by you did not materialize as the Communication Problem. Kindly retry the booking if you have not been able to complete your booking yet. We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. If the amount was Debited from your Account,We shall be making the refund back to your account shortly and it will start reflecting in your bank statement in 3 to 4 working days.

Yes, the Communication Problem.

And in typical Indian bureaucratic fashion, the message essentially blames the client for the fault, before suggesting that the transaction might have actually taken place:

We regret that the booking of your ticket could not be processed at this time as the transaction with ref. No. XXXXXXXXXX was not authorised by your bankers. The failure may also be due to some sort of inadequacies in your card / bank account.
You may kindly try using another valid card / account.
However, before proceeding further, we suggest that you kindly check from your 'Booked tickets' history if transaction has already been booked by you.


Sigh.