We’ve been told that the train ride is part of the authentic Indian experience. Trains play an important role in the plots of my three favorite films about India (Slumdog Millionaire, The Namesake, and The Darjeeling Limited). As we built the itinerary for our trip this year, we knew we wanted to include a train ride.

There were many reasons for our trip south. There is a Lutheran seminary in the city of Nagercoil, which is also where Rev. David is from. We wanted to visit some village churches. We also wanted to get a chance to see Kanyakumari, the town at the southernmost tip of India, where three seas come together.

Rev. David and Jothi picked us up at 6:00 pm last night (Saturday). The three newcomers were still adjusting and had to promptly sort their luggage into smaller suitcases to minimize what we brought aboard the train. We wound our way through Chennai, stuffed into SUVs during rush hour. I don’t know the streets of Chennai at all – after a total of three weeks spent here, I only have a passing familiarity with the streets around our hotel and the CMC – but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to our route. At one point, we turned a small, plain street corner and there was the Chennai train station, massive and beautiful at dusk.

We offloaded our luggage and followed Rev. David through the station; past unenforced metal detectors, over massive flyovers that spanned several tracks, to platforms that were a half mile long. We crammed into our car, an “AC” that was supposed to have air conditioning. We were about 25 minutes early, and the air conditioning didn’t start up until the train did. To better relate to how we were feeling, climb into a metal garden shed anywhere in Nevada this time of year, close the door, and bring a household vaporizer with you too. Good times.

Day 8 Train and Kanyakumari

Click on pictures for full albums.

Rev. David found us some cold sodas before we left the station, and as we started to move through the city, the car cooled down substantially. The sun was already setting, so there wasn’t much to see. It didn’t take long for all of us to convert our seats into bunks and turn in for the night.

This is where Dan, Drew, and Steve had the upper hand. Already tired and disoriented from their flights, they could have slept like babies on a fakir’s bed of nails. The train rocked around all night, constantly stopping as we worked our way south. No express for us! A few team members - myself included - simply couldn’t get a sound sleep as people moved through the car and the train never kept a steady rhythm to its movements. Dan, Drew, and Steve however, could have slept through Armageddon.

We stayed at one station for a very long time, somewhere in the middle of nowhere India. The sky was just threatening to grow lighter. Dad and I, out of sheer boredom, stepped off the train to stretch our legs and wander the platform in the shrinking darkness. Let me just stay that l think locomotives should louder, so you notice when they start to move. While we were admiring the village we were stopped in, we turned around to see the train slipping away from the station! We quickly scrambled aboard our train, and ran into Jothi, who had no idea we were even outside. I wish I could convey to readers the surprised noise she made! Today I learned: if you walk away from a train you still have business with, do not take your eyes off of it.

As the sun came up, the train came alive. Our team slowly awakened. At various stops, vendors came aboard to sling coffee or breakfast foods. Rev. David warned us not to buy from them, and later he almost missed the train himself as he stepped off to buy “real coffee” at a station.

We started seeing the villages we were passing come alive, too. At each crossing, there were more cars/motorcycles/cabs. We began to notice people doing there “morning business” behind bushes along the railroad tracks; which made me stop complaining about the bathrooms on the train. Wild pigs and peacock roamed small farms.

Soon I moved around to the doorway and rode the train while standing in the open doorway of the train. What a high! The train raced over a bridge that spanned a river. There, a hundred villagers bathed and washed clothing. Children caught my eye and waved. We always waved back.

The sparse savanna gave way to lush jungle. Soon, we saw mountains; craggy mountains near-vertical faces. We passed a forest of turbine windmills, placed to catch the wind that raced down the back of the mountains. We passed soaked lotus fields that nursed India’s national flower. Those fields gave way to rice patties, many with workers tending to the shallow crops.

I witnessed all this from the open doorway of our moving train, an experience I will never forget. But as our train slowed into Nagercoil, the new sights were just beginning.