101 Reasons Why California is Awesome: Travel Advice: Train Ride in India

If you like getting pushed down stairways by hoards of old ladies, being groped by pervy local men in “line” to pickup reserved tickets, and dealing with extreme changes of plan on short notice, then taking the train in India is perfect for you!

My family thought taking the train would be the most convenient way to travel from New Delhi to Agra. And if you think about it, sitting in pre-booked first class seats couldn’t that bad, right? Boy, we were wrong.

A relatively empty platform where I felt safe enough to bust out a few photos without getting my phone stolen

Our first mistake was our luggage. We originally had 8 bags, but by the Russian nesting doll method, we managed to condense them down to 5 super heavy bags. Train stations require walking multiple flights of stairs with no elevators/escalators. In order to deal with the luggage, we hired porters to carry our bags… on their heads.

Porters carrying our luggage (almost 100 lbs per person!)

If you ever plan on taking the train, pack light.

Second mistake: ticket pickups. Naturally, reserving seats ahead of time sounds like the simplest option. And that’s exactly what we did. However, when we brought our printed receipt, hardly any of the train station staff knew what to do with it. We were sent to different kiosks and pushed our way through countless “lines” until finally we found someone that could help us. Although we got the tickets worked out, they told us our train was delayed by 6 hours.

My dad trying to get our tickets. This is the "line" at one kiosk

Now let me tell you a little something about said lines. First of all, only men were standing in line, everywhere we went. This confused me because there were women and children all over the platforms waiting for trains. However, I figured it out pretty quickly. As articles my mom made me read before coming to India say, many of the men wandering about New Delhi are very disrespectful towards women. Even though I was wearing baggy clothes and holding onto my dad, the creepy dude standing behind us in line managed to grab my butt. And even when I made my dad stand directly behind me, the creepy man still kept trying to make passes at me. After that, I took my chances standing alone while my dad fought his way through lines, as in the picture above.

Advice to women: travel in groups, preferably with men you know closely. Make the men purchase tickets for you.

Second thing about lines. There might be 4 employees sitting at the counter, but only one person is working. Then instead of adhering to any sort of order, clients swarm around that one kiosk like a herd of cows trying to get to a feeding trough, unless there are metal rails forcing them into order. Indian service is crazy inefficient, no matter where you go. From the train station to five star hotels, it takes way longer and way more employees to get the job done.

After all of that, we decided to take a car to Agra instead without getting a refund on our train tickets. But after four hours with our awesome driver, Ram, a bad case of food poisoning and car sickness, we made it safely to Agra!

My advice with train tickets is to avoid booking in advance.

View of the train station while we waited for Ram to pick us up

In spite of my negativity, I don’t regret this experience. Attempting to take the train was the first time we got a taste of raw, non-tourist Indian life. It was refreshing to brush shoulders with such a large variety of people, even if they were trying to push you up a staircase. I definitely have a better sense for why my family has to be so tough, why my parents have a harder time accepting me hanging out with guys/dating in the US, and why Indian women are expected to dress conservatively. I think I’m going to reevaluate my wardrobe when I go home, and have a better appreciation for the safety in the US.

And if one thing is for certain, I have a huge newfound respect for the Indian women in my family. You ladies are rock stars.