It’s been four years since I last stayed in third world budget accommodation (New Zealand doesn’t count), since when I’ve enjoyed the comforts of Malmaisons, Hotels du Vin, Ian Schraegar New York glamour, Rio’s Hotel Copocobana and camping in Dorset. No surprise that standards here are variable, and that my standards have increased, although guidebooks can be misleading.

Here’s where I’ve been staying these past few nights.

Hotel Regent, Chennai. ‘Recommended’ – Footprint India. ‘Standard’ – Lonely Planet India. ‘Good for one night’ – Rough Guide South India. Thanks for the advice. Lesson here is follow your nose (and avoid the smell). What are those stains on the wall?

Price: 200R (about £2.50) for a night

Oberoi Grand Hotel, Kolkata. ‘Recommended’ – Joel Down. Grand’s the word, with swimming pool, cable TV, wireless internet access and cooked breakfast.

Price: $85 for a night. (I know. But I’m not 18 anymore. This is a holiday, not an Takeshi’s Castle. Give me a break!)

Main (Olde) Hotel, Darjeeling. Foam mattress and gaps in the window frame, on the main drag, but magnificent views and friendly staff. And running hot water.

Price: 400R (about £5) a night

Where next, I wonder. Can’t afford five star luxury every night…
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As I write this, the sounds of the out of tune, out of time Darjeeling Police Band seep into my hotel room. Here’s how I got here.

Having arrived at Sealdah station and fought through porters eager to carry my bags, I find that my overnight train is called the Darjeeling Mail. It’s a romantic name that brings to mind Betjeman’s clever rhymes in the Night Mail. But there’s little opportunity for romance on an Indian sleeper train.

One of the most common images of India is the express train, steam powered, with freeriders of the roof and kids on the fenders. It’s the vision made famous in books such as Paul Theroux’s Great Railway Bazaar. ‘Is it full of chickens and cows’ asks my sister, half jokingly. Not quite, Laura, but…

In brief, the types of train I’m likely to encounter in India are day expresses and overnight sleepers. On the sleepers there are several classes: first class, second class two-tier, second class three-tier, third class (wooden bunks, no A/C, ouch), and worse besides.

My first overnight journey, from Mumbai to Chennai, was in two tier second class. This means there are two bunks in each compartment. I had a whole wide, comfortable bunk to myself, the other three bunks taken up by a friendly naval architect, his wife and son on their way to a temple near the coast. They explained the systems for me, arranged my dinner and showed me how to prepare my bed.

Only on-board vendors from the ‘pantry car’ were allowed to sell us food, and bedding – two sheets, a pillow and a scratchy blanket – was provided.

‘Do you like curry?’

‘I live in Tooting!’

‘???…um…it’s not too hot for you?’

‘No, it’s fine, although not what I normally have for breakfast…’

Curtains can be drawn across our cubicle, each bunk has its own nightlight, and I get a good night’s sleep. The sensation is odd, rocking from side to side, head to toe. I feel like I’m in a car moving sideways, rather than a train moving forwards.

It’s disappointing that the price of air conditioned comfort is low visibility. Each cubicle has two small (maybe 75cmx50cm) windows, double glazed with dark brown tint and a condensation waterfall. It’s impossible to feel the outside temperature, sense smells or hear the country. India is absent, until we are expelled into the chaos of the terminus.

The trip to New Jalpaiguri, where the Darjeeling Mail (confusingly) terminates, is a rather different experience. There are no two-tier bunks left so I have to travel in a three-tier sleeper. It’s like being in a travelling prison.

Arriving at the station I find the train and my name is once again on the reservation list pasted to the side of the carriage. I’ve an upper berth, giving me a chance (I thought) to decide when I sleep. There are no curtains this time, and finding space for luggage under the bottom bunk is harder. I shove in my rucksack and chain it through one of the steel loops. With less space on the seat to share with others, I’m bashed and nudged as other passengers board.

Sharing my quarters are: a silent middle aged man with thick glasses, natty hat and a toe ring who will go to sleep late but then lie in well past ‘bunk-up’ time, leaving is with nowhere to sit; a sikh woman whose husband and two pretty daughters, mobiles in hand, all board to wish her goodbye; and three members of a Sikkim family travelling to the hills of Darjeeling for some rest and relaxation. The grandfather’s Rockport shoes suggest a life lived beyond Gangtok. His seven year old grandson gives them magazines for their journey. Outlook (an Indian Newsweek) for grandad, Stardust (a Bollywood magazine) for grandma and Gladrags (the She of India?) for mum.

Vendors pass through offering crisps, biscuits, ‘nescafe’, chai, calcualtors and reading glasses. Nothing I enjoy more on an overnight train journey than trying to spell naughty words using upside down solar powered casio knock-off. An excellent purchase. The hawkers will continue to pass through all night, showing no respect for the meaning of ‘sleeper’.

We depart. Bedding is distributed, but nobody comes to take my breakfast curry order. It’s time for bunks down, and we all try and make our beds within the confined cabin. It’s particularly hard when your bed is 2.5m off the ground. Getting in is even harder. With only a metre of headroom and a big leap from the narrow rungs, it’s a challenge to crawl in without falling off again.

There’s no nightlight back here in three-tier, so reading is hard – at least once the glaring fluorescent tube is turned off. Just like prison. The warders practice sensory deprivation throughout the night, with an air conditioning fan as loud as an auto-rickshaw inches from my head and the turning on of lights halfway through the night so they can hvae their snacks and chat in the empty bunk on the opposite side of the corridor.

Still, the rocking motion soon sends me to sleep, although with my head stuck in the curved edge of the roof and a bunk no wider than my shoulders, there’s an unanticipated edginess to the experience.

When I awake next morning, surprisingly refreshed, many bunks are already packed up and we’ve stopped. I’m worried that I’ve missed the station and jump down, only to find we’re delayed at a country halt. I hop down to the tracks and welcome the clear, cool dry air. The landscape is green and the sky is cloudy.

I’ve escaped the torrid plains.
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Thinking back to the menu of the Chuckuptari curry shop in Tooting, Madras always means the hot ones. Three chillis. Having visited Chennai, the city formerly known as Madras, I can believe that. It says something that the only pictures I have from here were taken from the doorway of my hotel room.

I’m beginning to work out that this is not peak tourist season. I’m about two months too early, or six months too late. This would explain (i) why I’ve not seen anyone other tourists (backpackers, travellers, trustifarians, call them what you will) and (ii) why it’s so hot. Did I say it was hot? Mid thirties and humid? Yuck.

The train journey was fine. I arrived just 27 hours after leaving Mumbai, argued down the auto-rickshaw fare from interplanetary to sub-orbital, and arrived at the £2 a night ‘lodge’ recommended in the Footprint guide. If I get the chance to meet those authors I will gladly push their faces into the big muddy puddle I had to walk through to get to the hotel entrance, if I don’t slip on the stairs beforehand.

I’m meant to be having a good time on holiday but right now I’m risking overheating. I called a crisis meeting with myself and decided to head for the hopefully cooler North of the country, abandoning plans for the south for now. And avoiding Sri Lanka too, which is further south and therefore even hotter. Sorry to do this but it will still be there if I decide to return later.

Trotted off to the 24 hour travel agency (now there’s a good invention) and booked a flight to Kolkata. This all felt a bit odd as I’m used to spending at least seven hours checking between different websites to find the the ‘best’ price – indeed, I spent more time finding the flight to India than I did buying my flat – now I had to rely on broken English communications and trust some bloke high on chai to find me the lowest price. Did I get it? Of course not, in India all non-residents are fleeced and forced to pay a squillion dollars when an Indian maharaja will pay about fifteen rupees. That’s international aid.

On Monday morning I sweated fifteen pints on the 250m walk to the local train station before heading on a suburban train to the airport. I immediately learnt that boarding a tube train in rush hour is a doddle compared with Indian local transport. At least on the tube you can actually get on the train, and the doors close, and nobody hangs off the outside. There was no way I could get onboard, and I had no idea when the next train would be. In a slight panic I ran down the side of the moving train and saw empty doors – aargh, women’s carriage! – and kept running before finding the calm of first class. Sod it, I only paid for second class but I can afford the fine. I jumped aboard as the train accelerated, very exciting, and made it to the airport on time. Phew.

India Fact 2: The price of a one way ticket on the Heathrow Express would pay for 180 trips to Chennai airport.

Goodbye south, hello north.
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