Chennai-Assam express.

Guest post by Artur.

Chennai-Assam express. Longest train we have had... ~60 hours. Train is good way to find new friends and to communicate with other peoples. In this train we have eaten allot of different types of sweets that was offered to us. We also made at least 4 new friends from various places - Kolkata, Darjeeling, Barpeta (Guwahati).

All people who has seats near each other have a lot of talks, share food with each other and make friends. Some family with whom we shared some sweets, wanted to see us last time before our arrival to train station and... they made phone call to guy from Kolkata (to whom we gave number in train) and he made call to us. That was interesting how people call to distances of ~1000 km to invite someone who is 4 train wagons distance from them. People who had nearby seats with us were: electrician from Tamil Nadu (~18 years old), sales manager from some Assam tea company (24 years old), stylist who works for L'Oreal cosmetic company (~24 years old), sales manager of break making company (~27 years old), security guard who works in Tamil Nadu and lives in some state nearby Assam (42 years old, super quiet and nice man), also we met financial analytic from some bank in Darjeeling (~30 years old). And yes - most interesting part is that we had ticket only for first 1000 km and next 1000 km was without ticket. And yes - this "express" train took 10 hours longer than it should have... so only because of that, that was ~60 hours long trip (I would call that train "snail express", such big delays don't happen very often). At nearby seat was guy who offered us to stay at his home in Guwahati and we agreed.

His home is Borka - few kilometers from Guwahati and it is rural area, with goats, farmers and very friendly environment. First day was very simple, we visited Guwahati, saw "Krrish 3" in cinema and in Raas festival we were honored guests. Second day we met friends, classmates and relatives of family we stayed. All of them offered us some tea and sweets, and in the evening there was local wedding ceremony where all people were allowed to go and participate. At the end of day my stomach was FULL, really full. I even learned Hindi word for full - "bhara", because we were at 6 houses where we had to eat and also few times were offered chai and sweets in small restaurants for free. Everyone here is polite and friendly, but my stomach wanted to blow from big amount of food, sweets and tea that was offered to us. We have been introduced to so many people that now on the streets everyone knows us, but we aren't able to remember all of them. I think I have been introduced in few day to more than 100,200,300, ... people? Sometimes people come and want to shake our hands - they use English-Hindi-Assam mixed language when speaking with us, and most interesting that sometimes I understand what they say.