Heading for Dehradun by train – a nice experience!

(From Delhi to Dehradun, India, 3rd of Sep 2016)

For the transport from Delhi to Dehradun we had booked tickets on a train to Dehradun that should leave very early in the morning. When we arrived at the entrance to the station we were stopped by a man who wanted to see our tickets. Johan just thought we would go past him as he thought he was trying to scam us but Christel, who believe that one must be a little more law-abiding and are a little more gullible, showed him our tickets. He then started raving that our train was canceled and we had to go to some kind of  ticket office to buy a new ticket. We argued a bit with him (Johan wanted him to show some ID but he refused.) and then we just passed him into  the train station, despite his protests. When we arrived to our trail, it turned out, of course, that our train would leave in time . (Just another scam attempt.)

After only a couple of minutes, a girl came rushing down the stairs to the track and up to us and wondered if we also had been requested to go to the ticket office to do some changes. She had had to pay 150 rupees (around 2 Euros) to them – on the advice of the guard that we did not listen to – because they claimed that she had the wrong kind of ticket and had to pay an additional fee. The only thing they had done was to write a few scribbles on her paper and we had a good laugh to guess what they had  written – maybe something like “now I have cheated another stupid  tourist”.

The girl was called Cam and was from Israel. We spent some time together at the platform and helped each other to find the way to the right part of the train. Surprisingly, each carriage was marked with signs at  the platform and the train arrived at the right time, better than Statens Järnvägar, (Swedish train company) we would say.

On the train it was the two of us and a lot of Indian people. We had booked a train coach with AC and it felt really luxurious. A little creaky seats but neat and clean due among other things to a little man swept the floor three times during the first hour. And what service they offered! Since the train was departing already at 6:45, we had not have time to eat breakfast in the morning. It was not long before we all got a small jar with lemon drink and soon after we got a tray each with a mug, a thermos and some biscuits. There was tea and it was so good and luxurious! An hour later next meal was coming up and then we got to choose between vegetarian and meat. We chose vegetarian and got hot potato buns and some french fries in a little foil box. We ate them with ketchup and they tasted terrific.Together with this we got a large bottle of water each. All garbage was picked up afterwards and then we had to give gratuities to those who served. As usual, it was difficult to know how much to give, they got around 5 Swedish kronor (0.5 Euro) from us.