The Long Night (Continued)

Having just met in a rush to the train, Casey and I got the novelty conversation out the way while we waited for the train manager to arrive. He had worked in London at Deutsche Bank for a short while before enrolling in a Masters in International Business in Bangkok. After almost an hour, the train manager arrived to send us to S3 - the standard sleeper class. Incidentally, this was class I was meant to have been in, so this story wouldn't have differed much had I made the train I was supposed to.

Anjli had once told me the standard sleeper class is the sort of class where I would have a bed...I might just have to get someone out of it. And sure enough, bed number 58 had a big moustached Indian man in it. I tried to grab the bed underneath, but another guy kicked up stink as it was clearly his. I bit the bullet and patted the dude on the leg "Yo, my bed!". Not the most diplomatic of introductions, but chances were, he couldn't understand anyway. He opened his eyes and I handed him my ticket. He pulled it in close to his face and squinted, then handed it back and closed his eyes. This was going to be a long night.

His friend, lying on an adjacent bed, finally got up to sort our problem. A compromise was reached where we were all happy enough. I was now in the middle bunk and Casey was on the top. This whole negotiation was conducted with two wrinkly old women, fully clothed in the traditional Indian one colour dress with a sparkly trim, complete with bangles and headscarf, both fast asleep on the bottom two bunks.

The night was spent waking up every ten minutes to look over our shoulders in case our bags were being taken. We didn't trust anyone.

Every time we did manage to get more than ten minutes sleep, a mobile phone would start ringing with some obnoxiously loud and invasive ringtone. The main perpetrator was the guy who had taken my bed; I had now pencilled him onto my black list for a quick and easy extermination.

A French guy occupied the top bunk on the other side of the passageway. Coincidentally, he had worked in the Toulouse region and had lived in Colomiers of all places. For those of you unaware, Colomiers is next to my hometown of Pibrac and where I went to school for twelve years. I've met French people everywhere.

The train finally pulled into Agra two hours late, after a much required stop for a Muslim prayer only a few stops from Agra. Casey and I were hoping to get a shared taxi with the French guy, but he disappeared half way through the night (sometime around Lucknow), as he was in the wrong carriage apparently.

The touts in Agra were waiting in anticipation for our arrival. Like zombies mindlessly pressed up against the train station gate, moaning and shouting, they wanted our wallets rather than our brains.