world's second biggest employer and it has over 75,000 kilometers of track

stretching across this vast land. Of course for Indians it's a fundamental

part of their transport system, but also for the modern, international

traveler it can form a fundamental part of your journey. At Wild

Frontiers we get asked time and time again. So what are the trains like?

How comfortable are they? What do the bunks look like? Of course that's

quite hard to explain over the telephone so what I thought I'd do in this

short film is not tell you but show you exactly what the trains are like.

So first of all this is what's known as first AC chair car. This is the

kind of service that you'll get if you're going on short train journeys in

India say between Delhi and Agra or Delhi and Rishikesh. Short journeys of

up to about four or five hours something like that. As you can see it's

very comfortable. The seats are reclining, you get mineral water, you'll

get breakfast, if you are brave enough to eat it, but yea it's a good

service easy and comfortable.

So this is first AC. Now the problem with this is they usually only have

one carriage on the train and it only sleeps twelve people which means it's

hard to get for groups but for mates this is what we try to use, two bunks

behind a sealed door. The second one that we mainly use for our groups is

called two tier AC. And this is what you get when you sleep during the

day. The back goes up in the evening you put it down and sleep on that.

What you also get at the end of the carriage or corridor is two more

berths which go down to make two beds and then goes up as a chair for the

day's journey. And each of the little berths is separated by a curtain

which can be drawn across to give you some privacy.

Okay so this three tier AC now what you can see here are the three bunks or

rather one bunk with three berths in it both sides and during the day this

gets pushed down but at night it gets pulled up and makes the third berth

of the bunk. This is three tier AC so that means there are six people in

each of these with two more at the far end. Here are two gentlemen

illustrating and there is the biscuit wallah so they are as comfortable as

the two tier, they're just a bit more crowded, that's all. There's no

curtain, no door, they're open.

So another thing to say is that each person in this class gets a blanket

and a pillow just like this chap is bringing down now, which he hands out

to everyone. They're actually incredibly clean and very okay to use. You

don't really need to bring a sleeping bag or anything. They're perfectly

okay.

You also have a constant flow of refreshment wallahs. This guy is selling

samosas but you also have chai wallahs, and water wallahs, and sandwich

wallahs, and crisp wallahs and every wallah you can think of. To be

honest, three tier AC does get quite crowded and we try to avoid it, it's

only when there's spill over that we do end up using it. Most of the time

we try to go to two tier AC which is much less crowded and much more

comfortable.

There are a couple of things to mention about traveling on the trains in

India. The first thing of course is the security. Just like anywhere in

the world you do need to take care particularly of your important

possessions like your passport, your wallet, et cetera. Actually the

security on the trains is pretty good in India and it's very unusual that

people get things stolen, but just like anywhere you need to take a little

bit of care.

The second thing to mention is that Indian Railways only allow you to book

seats on trains 90 days prior to departure. So this means you need to have

your travel plans in place as early as possible as trains particularly the

first and second classes can get booked up very quickly and of course if

you are booking later on it's all done on a rather random computer system

which means you may not get berths together if you are traveling with

friends or in a group. Of course on World Frontiers we manage this

situation as best we can and make sure that everybody stays within the same

compartment but the sooner you can get your travel plans together the

better.

But overall traveling on the trains in India is not only a convenient cost

effective and comfortable way to travel it also opens up India to you. If

you're the type of person that likes to travel beneath the surface, to see

the real country, to see how real people live, then train travel in India

is a quintessential part of your travel experience.