There is a train from Bhuj that travels to Mumbai. It leaves at 8pm and arrives noon the next day. I been having pretty excellent luck with purchasing train tickets only a couple of days before departure. The train to Mumbai was the only ticket I bought well in advance, two weeks to be precise, so I didn’t have to travel down to the station in advance. I did have to keep checking my ticket on line though, there was a waiting list for a berth, I’m number three on the list. When I checked this morning I was number 88! India, I can’t figure it out.
I did manage to get a seat on a berth, which I felt pretty lucky to do so, or so I thought, it was a folding seat that was a back to back type of set-up, needless to say this leaves an uncomfortable bump. For the first few hours I was the only one occupying the two seater, so I decided to go to sleep in the upper seat, it was the more comfortable of the two, even though I wasn’t assigned it. About an hour later, the man to who the seat did belong to kicked me out. I moved myself to sleeping on the bumpy bottom berth. Around midnight, this woman came over to me and shook me awake. She had a train official with her who informed me the we were both R.A.C. tickets and would have to share the one berth! Naturally, I didn’t get any sleep for the whole twelve hour trip. All I could do was sit in my corner and listen to her snore like Darth Vader. For the first time of my journey, I realized that I’d be pretty privileged in my travels, I remember the multitude times where I’ve been served first, because I was a tourist, so this put me in my place and I managed to fall asleep for the rest of the trip.
When I arrived, I immediately checked into one of the luxury Mumbai hotels and hit the bed like a ton of bricks.