Little Deuce Coupe

The turbanned doorman at the Asansol International quickly produces an auto for us and we have  an uneventful though rather chilly ride to the station. The illuminations left us in no doubt that we were there.  R wanted to know why the station was named after a brand of haemorrhoid cream.

We adopted our usual tactics of depositing R + luggage + kindle on a suitable bench while D went to suss things out. The charts had not yet been put up on the board even though we were only an hour away from departure so D tried a few lines of inquiry. On time, Platform 4 , chart on train said the man at the 'We are here to help' kiosk. One hour late, platform 3 , charts will be posted according to the man in the office marked Chief Reservations Clerk. The PNR reading machines in the booking hall persistently gave a Link Malfunction result. Fortunately there was no queue at all and the man at the counter asked if he could help. D showed the ticket and explained that we needed to know which cabin. He looked it up and gave the glad tidings. HA1 - C.  The coupe king is back in business.

By now the train is showing as 20 minutes late. It is train 13005, the Amritsar Mail, originating at Howrah. From Asansol it leaves the main line and takes a route through Patna and the Bihar bandit country, entering Varanasi on a girder bridge high above the River Ganges. At 22.30 the train pulls into Platform 4, the coaches aligned precisely with the platform indicator lights. The door at the First Class end of our coach is locked so we have to scurry along the platform to the 2nd Class end to get on board. 

We drop our luggage in the Coupe and sort out our paperwork for the TTE. The coach attendant appears and wants us to move into the 4 berth next door, already occupied by a couple. Do we look like gullible tourists? The TTE soon arrives and is quite happy with our location. We make ourselves cozy and bolt the door. 

R does not have a great night's sleep.  Might have to be traded in for a more robust model. It might have been something to do with lime pickle consumption. We catch the first chai vemdor of the day and open the curtain. We are very definitely in North India,  dead flat with hardly a palm tree in sight.  The train is on  schedule so we get the full half hour servicing stop at Mugalsarai, the last halt before Varanasi. The view of the city from the open coach door as we cross the bridge over the Ganges is rather special.