The Train Ride

Yesterday morning I arrived home on the Sleeper train- a night train that goes from Chennai all the way to Coimbatore in about eight hours. My host mother, one of her colleagues and I went to the train station around 10:30 p.m. and had dinner there at a small restaurant in an upstairs balcony where you could see a lot of the station. There were people EVERYWHERE! People with suitcases, people sleeping on blankets spread out on the floor, business men with briefcases stepping quickly through the crowds on their cell phones...
When we had finished dinner, it was 11:30 p.m. and our train was to leave at 11:55 p.m. So, we quickly got some lemon juice (coffee for my host mother) and practically ran to the train. We arrived at the correct platform and then had to walk about half way down the train to get to the correct car that we were in. When we had found it, the train jolted forward a few inches and we all freaked out and jumped on quickly! We found our seats, got settled, and still the train did not move again for another ten minutes or so- the jolt had only been to scare us after all!
When the train began moving, we decided to sleep. Each section of the car holds six people- three on each side. Therefore, we all started out sitting on a bench, but ended up folding that bench up to be a bed in the middle, and there was a top one already set up. I was on the top bunk, so I had to climb up and settle in between two clean sheets quickly before the lights in the car were turned off to go to sleep. When I was laying down flat, I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the train on the tracks, slowly swaying back and forth as we rounded corners, and especially when we stopped and started up again. Surprisingly, I slept pretty well for it being my first time in a train! I was happy when I woke up at 7:00 a.m.! I had been thinking that I wouldn't sleep at all!
When my host mother and I reached the station in Coimbatore, we got our luggage from underneath the seats and got off the train. We then walked through the platform until we got to the street outside and took an auto (small yellow cabs basically) back to the apartment where we had breakfast with my host father!