Chennai to Delhi by train

I have just completed the longest rail journey of my life so far. 2 nights and 1 day on the Tamil Nadu express train between Chennai Central and New Delhi.

The train is very impressive. Wipe all your preconceptions about Indian trains being dirty, crowded and slow.  Whilst the suburban rush hour trains certainly are some or all of the above, the long distance sleeper trains are lovely. There are 7 ‘classes’ on Indian trains – 1st and 2nd class Air Conditioned (AC) sleeper, 3rd class sleeper, just ‘Sleeper’, chair class and one other which I couldn’t find…

Indians are quite crazy about their trains. Whenever we pass through a tunnel, everyone whoops, shouts and screams. Every 20 mins or so a

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September 19th, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: train travel | Leave a comment

The highs and lows of Chennai

I arrived in Chennai yesterday from lovely Sri Lanka for my long stint of lone traveling around the world. Chennai is just as crazy as Mumbai. I guess most of the large Indian cities are similar – roads packed with vehicles honking horns, people everywhere; crammed into backstreets, sleeping under sheets or just on the side of the road. Unlike Mumbai, Chennai didn’t appear to have much by the way of pavements, so I spent most of my time walking through the filth & dodging tuk-tuks, motorbikes and buses in the road.

I stayed in the very simple Paradise Guest house in Triplicane, very close to the main tourist office and a string of cheap but highly rated hotels including the

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September 17th, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: South Asia, india | Leave a comment

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