Fresh from the excitements of Siberia and Mongolia the Wyndham Travellers decided to head for India in the summer of 1986. By chance we came across the Butterfield organisation. Ashley (ex-London Transport Bus Conductor) and Jane M.A. Sociology (Bristol), held a long lease on an ancient wooden Indian Railways passenger coach, adapted for spartan occupation, and suitable for attachment to semi-fast trains travelling throughout the sub-continent. It was based in Delhi and could be commissioned for service at very short notice

We invited them up to Wyndham to plan the route, finalised as Delhi – Agra – Lucknow – Varanasi – Itarsi – Nagpur – Hyderabad – Bangalore – Mysore - Poona – Bombay ( Mumbai ) a total of 2300 miles in 14 days. The logistics were unusual. We would be largely self-catering, buying produce from local markets close to our station stops – except for margarine and loo paper ( unobtainable ) and cooking oil (unreliable ). 3 months before departure I deposited 14 lbs. of margarine, packed in sacking, in the 6^{th.form deep freeze. I carried it as hand luggage and it arrived in Delhi still in a brick like state. Others carried 100 flat packs of san-izal bought from the caretaker, sale or return, biros and masses of T-shirts and shorts for the station children and lots of Black-label Johnny Walker for oppressed minor officials.}

We joined the bogie on platform 1 at Delhi junction. Our neighbours, who lived under a tarpaulin close by, had 2 daughters of primary school age. We invited them to join us on a visit to the Ghandi memorial garden. The elder was rather glum as her marriage arrangements were under discussion but we had many laughs carrying both girls across the black marble steps which were unbearably hot for their bare feet. Next morning they waved as they passed proudly on their way to school, immaculate in their uniforms.

It was on our first morning in Varanasi that we had our first taste of station life. Adjacent to our platform was the carriage washing plant. It had been taken over by a happy band of young ones who were washing under its leaking sprays. We invited them for breakfast. As there were so many we drew a chalk line along the platform and asked them to sit behind it. We needn’t have worried. They were an object lesson in good manners and graciousness. Each had a piece of cardboard on which we placed rice and vegetables. Each took their portion to share with family members in other parts of the station.

Occasionally, if no children appeared, we presented our offerings to the engine crew, who invited us to ride with them on the footplate or in an adjacent coach. Here we met the singers and the sweet sellers, some as young as five and travelling alone. They would come and sing, recite a poem or offer us a wrapped boiled sweet in exchange for a few coins. On our long homeward journey across the Deccan, we came across children employed making perfect pyramids of stray track ballast, or selling dried cow pats for fuel.

But it was with our neighbours on platform 13 of Bombay Victoria that we had our final meal in India. The family to our left lived under a large tarpaulin and whilst our charcoal burners gathered heat on the platform, they bathed their babies carefully in a plastic bowl and dried them with a sparkling white towel. To our right, the gentleman in a smart suit, got out his bed mat, and using his briefcase as a pillow, fell asleep before the meal was ready. By 2a.m. with the monsoon at its height, we scattered the rats and crossed the tracks to the decrepit taxis, the only vehicles prepared to brave the weather and get us to the airport for the 3a.m. check-in.