VARANASI TO AGRA | AC2 Tier Overnight Train (18 hours)

If you missed our last video, we have been pretty ill the last few days, but today is a new day. We're feeling better. Nate is actually still sick, but he's stronger than recovery. It's gonna be okay. And we're about to go get on our first overnight train in India.

So this train journey actually starts a much longer train journey. Over the next nine days, we're going to be traveling almost 2,000 kilometers from Varanasi to Mumbai, stopping at Jaipur and Agra along the way. Let's go catch our first train. On second thought, we are going to hang out here at the guest house for a little bit longer. We just learned that our train is delayed for two hours. Thankfully we learned that before we went to the train station.

So it's been two hours and we've just learned that our train has been delayed an additional two hours. So now we don't leave till 9:25.

Which isn't a big deal. I'm actually kind of happy about this delay because now we're not going to get into Accra until 10ish. And we were arriving at 6 which is just early. So I'm okay with this delay as long as it's not delayed anymore.

Thankfully our guest house owner has been super cool and he's just letting us hang out in the room. So I've been napping and recovering and.

It'S been great and the sunset is so pretty.

All right, check in soon. Hopefully the third time's the charm. It is now 8:30 and we are heading to the train station for our train that's supposed to be leaving at 9:25 that was originally supposed to leave at 5:25.

That. That's a fl.

That rickshaw ride was a doozy. But we made it to the train station.

I had 25 minutes to find our train. We're also here with the rest of everybody else in Varanasi. There it is.

We have found what we think is our train platform. However, the train that is there is not our train. I confirmed with two different people standing down there, one tourist and one Indian that are train is coming at 10. Now it was supposed to leave at 5:30, then it was going to leave at 7:30, then it was Going to leave at 9:30. Now it's arriving at 10 but we don't know anything for sure at this point so we thought we'd just make ourselves cozy up on this little breezeway cuz it's not too hot and we're just going to wait for that train to move and hope that our next.

Could be worse. He doesn't have a fever anymore. I have a Snickers. Counting my blessings.

It is 10:10 and our train is arriving audio. When it's leaving. I'm just happy we can get cozy somewhere. 14, 8, 5, 4. I see it.

It's 14, 85 3.

Oh, 14, 8, 5, 3.

I see that too.

At the numbers. Do you? I haven't seen yet either. Ah.

13, 14, 15, 16.

Hello.

17, 18.

Ah. So this is us right here.

And right here this is our home for the night. Nate's going to take the bottom bunk. I'm going to take the top bunk. The train seems like clean. It's not super new but it smells pretty nice. These don't have any like stains or anything on them. My bunk came with a pillow with a little stain on it.

This might be dir. This might be a useful one. And a big thick black blanket. That also doesn't seem very clean. Yeah, these though.

Are sheets. These seem clean.

There's room for your stuff underneath the seat but I think I might keep my stuff with me because we're just right in the aisle. It's a little exposed and that's about it.

So comfy. The good thing is sick and exhausted anyway. So I don't think it matters what the sleeping situation is. I'm going to sleep.

I hope so. Go and find the bathroom.

That's good luck.

Hopefully you don't have to spend much time there tonight.

Yeah, for real.

Not so fresh in here. This is the bathroom. It is a squatty potty. I don't see any toilet paper. I think there's some soap. Yeah, there's some soap.

It really stinks.

Looky there. That's a real toilet. I just had to come to the other side of the train and there's an actual toilet. I don't know if it's that much better but. Alright, that's all for the bathroom updates.

We're moving. Hopefully we can get some sleep tonight. We'll pick back up in the morning.

Good morning. It is about 9:15. I finally gave up on tossing and turning. I don't think I slept for more than 20 minutes at any one time last night. The bed was so hard that like if I slept in one position for more than 20 minutes I would just wake up like super sore. Have to turn to my side and my side would be super sore. I just checked my phone to see where we were and it looks like we're not even halfway between Varanasi and Agra. This entire journey was supposed to take 12 hours, which would mean that we still have at least six hours to go, which would put us there about 3:15. We were supposed to arrive at 6:10 this morning. So that's like a 9ish hour delay so far and I'm not holding my breath for that at this point. The good news is we didn't have any plans for today, so this really isn't messing us up too bad. I think Kara's still sleeping. Let's see.

She's still sleeping. It's a good thing we travel together. She is completely passed out. I opened up her curtain, the light shines straight in her eyes. She didn't even wake up. Look who's awake.

I'm awake but there's no coffee. Nobody's come and tried to sell me coffee. Also, we're at a stop right now at a train station, but we don't know how long we're here and so we don't want to get off and go buy stuff because the train might do this and there's nobody around to.

Ask.

Like no one.

It is now 12 o'.

Clock.

We still have no idea when we're getting to Accra and we're both getting pretty, pretty hungry. Unlike our last train, there were people walking up and down the aisles constantly, like trying to sell snacks and drinks and we haven't seen any of that. There was one guy selling like full meals, but we've kind of made it a rule not to buy food unless we see it being cooked. But I would love like some peanuts and water. We also haven't had coffee. Still haven't eaten my Snickers though. Saving it for emergency.

It's time.

I said the exact same thing.

Sam.

Eighteen hours later, what should have been a 12 hour train has finally arrived.

It's 4:15 but we've made it. We are in Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal.

And it's hot, it's hot.

All right, now we just have to find a tuk tuk to our place.

So I feel really good that for the first time we're probably actually paying the local price. But I also think that our driver probably has no clue where we're going. He knows the general area. Yeah, I just said no to all the people that were inside of the train station. And then I came out to the road and I got the price that I ran. I should have gotten with somebody who speaks a lot less English than the guys in the train station. Yeah.

Once again, we are attempting to navigate our tuk tuk Driver to our guest house. This seems to be going quite a bit better than last time. I think we're gonna make it. First try, one slightly wrong turn, but we're still on track. No, keep going. Was that it? I think. I think. Keep going. All right. Be looking on your side. Where are you going? Friend guest house. Friend guest house. Yes.

I think those guys know better than Google Maps. Yeah. Ah, yes. Thank you.

I can see myself in the mirror right now. I'm not looking too fresh. I apologize.

We have made it to our hotel. We didn't end up going out because as soon as we got here, there was like some weird dust rainstorm that.

Came through our hotel. Guy was, like, turning off all the.

Power in all the rooms and closing the doors, talking about fires. I don't know. It was weird.

Feel like we should give our overall thoughts about the first leg of our train journey through India. It wasn't the best.

Could have been better, but it also.

Could have been worse. Overall, it wasn't bad. We were not prepared for the lack of food, water, and coffee, especially with the delay. I thought we would just sleep and wake up, be here. So we just didn't really.

Yeah, it was poorly planned for all.

Of the delays, but next time it'll be better. I think we'll have better expectations.

And thankfully, we still have two long journeys left, so hopefully we can redeem train travel in India.

He was coming for it too.

I was trying to shoot a time lapse so people would know we're waiting a long time.

What do you think you're doing?

I don't like monkeys. I might have to go to my last resort, which is pouring the powdered coffee that we have into a bottle of water. That's when you know you have a caffeine addiction. I need it.