So we made it onto the train to Jalgaon and met a really nice guy on it who works for a pipe making business there, he was pretty keen to tell us all about it and fortunately we managed to feign interest in large industrial pipes and farming irrigation for a polite amount of time. In return he gave us some good train travel info.

When we got to Jalgaon we jumped on a local bus to Fardapur (aka middle of nowhere) which is the town closest to the Ajanta caves. We only had the day planned for Ajanta and had to be on a bus at 7am the next day, so despite our lack of sleep we jumped in a car and headed for the caves.

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There were numerous times during our week in Mumbai when I thought to myself “shit, I was almost just killed by that bus/taxi/crowd/horse drawn carriage!” when in fact I wasn’t at all. This being our first visit to one of India’s major cities, it just took us a day or two to acclimatise to the sometimes overwhelming combination of the closeness and craziness of this incredible place.

Our overnight train from Margao arrived exactly on time, which was unfortunate because that time happened to be 4.05am and we soon found out that Mumbai before dawn is quite a contrast to the Mumbai we’d be battling with later that day.

We met a fellow traveller (another Alex) in Margao before we boarded our train and we decided to meet up again at Mumbai’s CST Station to see if he could get a room at the same hotel we’d booked ourselves into. It was a short walk from the station to the hotel so we waved away the few taxi drivers that were hanging around outside and set off, map in hand. Unfortunately there were a few unexpected obstacles between the deserted station and the hotel, namely people – lots of people – sleeping across the entire pavement. With me concentrating on the map, a well timed shout from Alexandra stopped me from introducing myself to the first Mumbai residents I’d come across by falling onto them with a 20kg bag on my back! After that near miss, and one wrong turn, it took us slightly longer to find the hotel than we’d hoped, and I (being the map reader) was feeling the pressure to get us to the hotel as the nocturnal wildlife of rats and overly territorial dogs seemed to be closing around us. Luckily for us it was only one wrong turn and we were able to regain our bearings and get to the hotel where, after a minor argument with the ‘cheerful’ (Lonely Planet’s description) reception staff about our very early check in, we finally made it to our room.

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The train ride to Hospet from Margao was our first experience on the Indian railways. We arrived in good time to make sure we could figure out the station and stocked up on supplies for the six and a half hour journey. Only once the train arrived at the platform did we realise that the sign indicating the intended position of our carriage was totally wrong. A backpack-laden sprint later, we found our seats and settled down for the trip. It was an interesting first experience. I don’t think the sound of ‘chaiiii?!’ being shouted loudly into my left ear will ever leave my memory, as one of the numerous chai-wallahs dragged his feet for the thousandth time along our carriage. We were booked into a sleeper carriage, but there was certainly no sleeping to be had on this one.
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We’re sitting on a train (our first Indian train journey) on the way to a new state, Karnataka where we’re off to visit the world heritage listed site of Hampi. We’ve been in India for a week and a half and have spent the whole time in Goa.

We had a pretty lengthy journey to India, we drove to Melbourne from Phillip Island, narrowly made our flight to Sydney (we were held up by road works through Melbourne), then to Singapore, overnight in Singapore (we stayed inside the terminal and had to trust that Air India would collect our bags from BA lost property and get them on the flight!!), Mumbai, Goa and then a taxi journey to the capital city, Panjim. All in all it was pretty tiring but basically uneventful. We arrived with all our luggage, in one piece!

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