Kannur to Alleppey

9:30 saw us on platform 3 of Kannur station looking mystified. Our ticket said carriage D2 on the Ernad Express but there was no information about where carriage D2 might stop. These trains are enormously long, some 24 carriages or so, and if you are not at the right place on the platform it can be physically impossible to get to your allotted seat.

Luckily several people we asked all confirmed that the carriage would halt opposite the food kiosk, and we waited there until it became obvious as the train pulled in that our carriage was 50 metres further back. A quick sprint ( relatively speaking with two rucksacks and two day bags) and we attained our goal. Two seats, one at a window, the other on the opposite aisle position, our home for the next almost eight hours.

The carriage wasn't full, so the journey started quite comfortably, but by the time it got to early afternoon things had gone both literally and metaphorically southwards. Despite the 30 ceiling fans and open windows and doors, the temperature had risen to about 35C. All the babies and children were too hot and wailing, many more people had got in, tea and coffee wallahs were loudly proclaiming their wares, then to add to the cacophony a lady with a sleeping baby strapped to her back began to sing for money.

Somehow, with a lot of water that we were carrying, and food that Christine had purchased from a very modern clean bakery near Kannur station, we survived the experience to emerge unscathed at Alleppey station. I estimated the Ernad Express had averaged 26mph during the journey.

Getting a tuk-tuk was interesting. You paid a man in a kiosk at the station one rupee, told him the destination and he printed a ticket with a very low fare to be paid to the driver. Prepaid taxis they called it, anyway a few minutes later we were at the A.J.Park hotel marveling at the miracle that is air conditioning.