Hirakhand Express

Koraput Junction is a station that looks as if somebody important cares about it. There are 3 platforms and a reasonably good selection of facilities.  R is deposited with the luggage in the Class 1 waiting room which is clean enough and has a fan as well as a recharging socket. There is also a quite clean loo/shower room. D goes on a tour of inspection and finds the refreshment stall from where two chais are purchased.

There is plenty of train activity to watch and in between there is a Rogues Gallery to examine at the end of the footbridge.  A team of ladies constantly sweep the platforms while two goods porters provide amusement by their inability to keep a hessian parcel of cooking pots on their rather wonky trolley.

Our train arrives a mere five minutes late and we are soon installed in our 2AC inside berths. In our bay we are joined by a young man who immediately settles in to study TAAG*, making copious notes as he does. Even D is impressed as this chap has put a paper cover on his copy as if it was a school book. His English is limited so we can't work out what he is doing. There are a few other people in the coach and a vendor selling a wonderful smelling mixed snack in newspaper cones. R vetoes this immediately. 

We get under way a few minutes late and dawdle across country. This is the line that D did his Tuesday day out on but by the time we get to Kakrigumma it is very dark indeed and we can see nothing. We dine on Haldiram's Indian Snack Mixture, a bit like Bombay Mix and Marie biscuits, washed down with water. Life at the top eh?

We turn in at around 8 p.m. Which prompts our companion to start playing a selection of Bollywood hits on one of his many phones. These are slightly less raucous than his animal noise ringtones. At some point in the night a man occupies the other upper berth in the bay but he has disappeared by first light.

In the morning we awake to thick fog over northern Odisha but the train is making good progress. We arrive in Bhubaneswar a mere 30 minutes late7. We immediately award the station here the prize for undisputed smelliest that we have been to so far in four trips. The auto touts are persistent if somewhat lacking in ambition.  Our hotel is only 200 yards from the station entrance and one guy walks most of the way there with us trying to persuade us to pay Rs 30 for an auto ride.

* Trains At A Glance. The Indian Railways passenger timetable. Do keep up!