Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

With the holiday season well upon us, I switched my blog title from "Come On Ride The Train." But, nonetheless enjoy the video below as you read this post all about booking our train tickets.

Plane tickets are booked. Check.

Motorcycle license endorsement has been obtained. Check.

Now it is train time.

We start our adventure from Jaisalmer which does not have an (usable) airport, in order to get from Delhi to Jaisalmer we need to take a train. The train ride is about 13 glorious hours and, in all honesty, I could not be more excited that we get to do this! As with most things we have had to do to prepare for this trip, booking train tickets isn't easy.

There are several options for individuals without an Indian phone number to book an e-ticket on the Indian Railway. None of the options are simple. So here is what we did:

1. We went to irctc.co.in and clicked the signup link to create an account.

a. When it asked for a phone number, we just entered our phone number. It doesn't work, but we can't leave it blank, or it won't accept the sign up.

2. After hitting submit, we received an email with an Email OTP (One TIme Password). Since we don't have an Indian mobile, we did not get an SMS OTP, like you are supposed to. You need both OTPs to authenticate your sign up. So...

3. We sent an email to care@irctc.co.in with our user name and a scan of our passport. In this email we asked them to activate our account since we do not have an Indian mobile.

4. In less than 48 hours we had a reply that our account had been activated and we could log in and book our tickets.

The India Railway does not allow you to book tickets more than 120 days in advance, so after creating our account, I made a calendar reminder for 11/29, and put this on the back burner. I wanted to book early so we could be assured we would be in a decent class on the train.

Indian train class deferential is different than in the US. I think most people have an image in their minds of what riding on a train in India is like. You are either thinking: Cattle cars or The Darjeeling Limited. The reality [so I am told] is somewhere in the middle.

train-croud

darleeing

There are several classes on each train [in order of cost]: 1AC, 2AC, 3AC, FC, EC, CC, Sleeper, and Unreserved. AC does stand for air conditioned, so we knew we wanted to be in 1AC, 2AC, or 3AC. Our hope was to book a 1AC class ticket, mainly for privacy sake, but there was only one seat left. We went ahead and got a wait list ticket, just in case something opens up, and booked confirmed 2AC tickets. We have been told 2AC is the same as 1AC except you get a curtain rather than a locking door - no biggie. If the 1AC wait list ticket opens we will cancel the 2AC seats, if not, we will just cancel the 1AC tickets.

The picture on the left is 1AC and the right is 2AC.

Seats-and-Booking-Into-Indian-Trains-02

2AC

I am so extremely excited for this part of the trip. I feel like it is great way to begin our journey, and will be an amazing experience. I am, also, really looking forward to sharing this experience with you all in real time in March! As you can see in the above picture, we will likely be sharing a space with other people. All of this interaction with strangers will be a continual reminder of the importance of kindness.

And so I leave with this; remember kindness comes in all shapes and forms...sometimes even in stealing someone's Diner's Club card and then leaving it the car you caught on fire.

"Why would I put it there?!"

"....kindness?"

"KINDNESS!?!?"

If you are thinking of a simpler way to express kindness this holiday please consider donating to Ben's Bells via our DONATE page or buttons. Thank you - you are kind, you are smart, you are important!