April 18th | Take-off

Having not slept a wink, we were wide awake and all sent to leave, but still faulted by an hour and had to load and leave in a rush. While loading the bags on the bike, we realized that one of the bags did not fit on the carrier! Phew, Murphy at (hard) work. Standing in the parking lot, we partially emptied the bag, transferred some stuff to the other bag and eventually pulled the bungy cords together to get the bike ready to leave.

At the station, another goof-up. We were suppose to carry photocopies of the RC Papers, now the search for a photocopy guy who would give us a copy at 5AM! You can imagine what we went through. After we managed that, the person at the counter tells us, he cannot book the bike on this train because it is already ful-up. In the panic, we pleaded, requested, begged and finally managed to get the bike on the train. Phew!

In the train, we discover that a family of four have two confirmed and two RACs. WTF! Now we had to deal with eight people in the area for six. Suzy and i go “Why us?!?” Grrr! But the two nights of (almost) no sleep helped, we got in and crashed, only to get up for lunch and dinner and then tucked back cozily on the top berth.

We slept well.

Moral(s): Load the bike once before leaving to see the placement etc. Take sufficient photocopies of RC papers. Ideally book the bike on the train a day before to avoid all the tantrums by the loaders and other railway staff. Carry ear-plugs to deal with the chatter in the train.