828 Orvieto; Taking the Train; India by Rail

18:37It isn't a night train, but Europe is very much connected. And I could fly, but I'd have to leave my house and go to an airport, which is pretty much a large shopping mall where I don't want to be with a runway attached. And then I go in a plane and I don't probably talk to that many people because you're belted in. And then you don't see any of the landscape. you might see some mountains from above and then you land you have no real sense of where you are because the airport looks just like the one you've just left and then you have to travel to where you actually want to be but with a train you know it's city to city it's pretty much door to door if you're in central Europe and that's a wonderful thing

19:14Rick Steves:and the train stations are very welcoming these days and they're just gleaming and efficient and fun the trains are comfortable the trains are much faster than they used to be And often electric, so you're not burning any fossil fuel, which is great. And they're much more green, yeah. So if you care about the environment, if you like to see the, do a little sightseeing as you travel, and if you want to meet people, there's a lot of cases to be made for taking the train in other times might be a flight. You know, a good example would be Barcelona to Madrid. In the old days you flew, I don't know anybody who flies now, you take the train.

19:50Rick Steves:London to Paris, why would you fly? It's two and a half hours by train, isn't it? Yeah, and it's a very pleasurable experience. And I think still we have the slight novelty of the Channel Tunnel. I was just at the St. Pancras train station in London, and that's where the new terminal is for the bullet train under the English Channel to Paris and to Brussels. Man, it's busy. And it's just, I would imagine it's really dented the air traffic from London to Paris. Well, hopefully. I think everything needs to be competitive. And in fact, Europe is bringing in laws to kind of limit short-haul flights if there's a rail option, which I think can only be good.

20:29Rick Steves:You mean Europe is legislating green travel options? That's right. Isn't that a concept? I can't imagine. In this country, we're almost legislating against green travel options these days. Well, I think there's a difference in Europe and perhaps in China and perhaps other places where rail is preeminent. The people who are taking the decisions actually use the services. Whereas in the States, I can't imagine that anybody in a position of power is ever actually getting the train. Isn't that interesting? Well, that just reminded me I was in Guatemala complaining about the infrastructure, the terrible roads in Guatemala.

21:06Rick Steves:And they told me, well, all the rich people have their own helicopters, so they don't need roads. And there's a society that has really gone off the deep end as far as the gap between rich and poor and the lack of middle class and the infrastructure that is ignored for people who are elites and just can fly over it. Well, I think it's such a sadness in the states because you have these flyover states, as they're referred to, and wouldn't, you know, at a time when there's quite a polarizing conversation being had or perhaps not had in the states, wouldn't it be good if you were able to travel across the states and meet people who you might not agree with at first, but you could have, you know, a cup of coffee with them, you could have a beer with them on the train, and you could actually find some common ground, whereas if you're flying the whole time, you're in this little bubble and you're only going where you want to go, you're not meeting anybody from in between.

21:53Rick Steves:You're going from Los Angeles to New York, or from Miami to San Francisco, yeah, you're flying over all the people we should be talking to, and all the beautiful terrain we should be appreciating. Absolutely, and if you're in a car, you know, you're self-directed, there's nothing really that's going to go wrong, you hope, So you're just getting from A to B. Isn't it kind of baked in because, I mean, I don't know what your perspective is in Europe, but Europe grew up around train lines and America invested in highways instead. It's true, but you used to have a wonderful network of railways, which I think when people are traveling by planes and when they're traveling by cars, you're going to get those two major lobbies for whom I suppose the railways in the 50s and 60s, they could compete a bit, but in the 70s, they really went downhill.

22:40And that's because, again, the decision makers, they didn't factor it in. They didn't really understand the joys of it, I suppose. And I think America could reinvent itself, as China has, with having these very fast trains that can compete with the aeroplanes and be a lot better for the environment.

22:56Rick Steves:Dan Richards befriends the world of night workers in his latest book called Overnight, Journeys, Conversations, and Stories After Dark. He's also written the Beachwood Airship Interviews and Outpost. And Dan follows his trailblazing Great Great Aunt Dorothy's mountaineering adventures in climbing days. His website is danrichards.uk. So, Dan, you mentioned China. It really is interesting because there's so much going on with competition between the powerful economic centers on this planet, the United States, Europe, and China, and I know Europe is investing in its bullet trains and I know the United States is investing in fossil fuel related things.

23:41Rick Steves:What is the news from China as far as transportation infrastructure goes? Well, China's amazing progress is profoundly impressive. About 30 years ago, they weren't really in the picture and since then there's been a huge amount of investment. There's been this very clear vision of what they want And they have linked nearly all of their major cities now with a network of super fast trains that are very affordable and mean that people can get around without having to fly. And I know that one of the big talking points or certainly parroted views in the States is that the United States is too large for railways to make an impact.

24:25You know, you have flights, people fly. It's not a problem. But in some ways it is a problem. It's a problem for the environment. It's a problem potentially socially. And you were talking about Guatemala earlier. You know, the haves can fly in their helicopters, they can fly in their planes. And the super haves in America, you know, they can fly in their rockets. And that's great. But a whole section of society is potentially being left in the dust. And part of that is that infrastructure for those who drive and those who take the current trains is quite profoundly poor. And the solution has always been to build more roads.

25:00And the idea of building new train lines often comes into conflict with this idea of, oh, well, America's too big. But to actually have the vision to think, well, what if we have a look at what China's doing? What if we build railways like we've never known on the continent before that are incredibly fast, you know, 300 kilometers an hour? that would cut your journey time between major cities, you know, to something that could really compete with airlines. They could be electric. They could take very short routes through tunnels, you know, where you had major land masses in the way. This is the sort of thinking that gets you, you know, a new result as opposed to what potentially what's been happening in the past where people have been trying the same thing over and over.

25:48Rick Steves:But isn't the fundamental thing moving the masses rather than just finding expensive luxury travel for the elites? I mean, we've got 350 million people or something like that. China's got a billion people or something like that. Is China actually moving their masses on rails? They absolutely are. I mean, people are using the trains. Part of that is the frequency of the services. It's not like you'd be waiting hours for a train. Trains are coming every 15 minutes and sometimes less. It's fundamentally different. In the United States, if you miss your train, come back tomorrow. Absolutely. In Europe, sometimes I'll stand on a bench and I'll watch the train coming through, and if it's too crowded, I know there's another one in half an hour.

26:31Rick Steves:I'll just have a cup of coffee and get on the less crowded train coming in half an hour. It's a whole different approach determined, really, or made possible by priorities in infrastructure and investment. You may have seen Dan Richards' guest opinion column for the New York Times on what America is missing by not investing in more passenger trains. Dan also posts on Instagram, at Dan underscore Zep. And we have links to his earlier appearances in our Travel with Rick Steves show archives. Dan, in your New York Times piece, you wrote about some of these innovative, kind of seductive new visions by American futurists and mega-wealthy and elites supersonic news, tunnels underneath Las Vegas.

27:23Rick Steves:Tell us about some of these innovations and these attempts to modernize our infrastructure. I think it goes back to just what you were saying, moving the elites. A lot of these ideas are potentially flashes in the pan for people to get around who are in the 1%. There's an idea to bring back supersonic aircraft in the style of Concorde, and I think their capacity is 68 people. That's not going to move America. And also the prices I imagine will mean that a large amount of Americans will be priced out of even, you know, attempting to engage with this. The idea of building tunnels for cars, as has happened under Los Angeles, I mean, that's a less efficient metro by any metric.

28:09And so the solutions, I think, are often hiding in plain sight. But railways in the state seem to have a bad rap. And part of that is the fact that if you defund something, if it is low down on your list of priorities for improvement, for funding or for even just to consider, then it's inevitable that the people who use them, there'll be less services. The services will be older. The services will be run down. And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that you have an embarrassing railway network. Whereas China was in that situation 30 years ago. And through clarity of vision, large funding and, you know, support at the highest levels, they've managed to build a world beating infrastructure, rail infrastructure that's able to move China.

28:58And, you know, they didn't let the distance, they didn't let logistical problems get in the way of the vision.

29:06Rick Steves:And they didn't let the elites shape the infrastructure. I think a good metaphor is cities will oftentimes tear down a stadium, not because it doesn't accommodate the masses better, but because it lacks the VIP boxes that the elites really demand. And that would be, I think, related to people who look for transportation breakthroughs via concords that can seat 60 people. It's just sort of an indicator of who's calling the shots, who's got the money, and who's got the power. Absolutely. I think, you know, we already have Learjets. Now we're going to have supersonic Learjets. Well, that's super if you habitually travel by Learjet.

29:43Rick Steves:Right. Dan, you're getting on a train, I think, in a few hours to head over from London to Europe. Tell us what you're looking forward to as you enjoy using today's train network in Europe and how that might have been different from a generation ago. Well, a couple of generations ago, you could have got the boat train from London. which is, I mean, this is the stuff that you read about in Sherlock Holmes and perhaps you, P.G. Woodhouse and all of the 1930s things. It's in Agatha Christie. So you'd get the fast train to the coast and then you would, the train itself might be put on a ship that would go over the...

30:21If the weather allowed. If the weather allowed.

30:23Rick Steves:I remember lots of times waiting for the storm to pass on that English Channel crossing. Yes. And then the train would get to the other side, hopefully, and then you'd hopefully get to Paris. Dogs would sniff you at the border. Yep, absolutely. And a lot of that's been done away with, of course, by the Channel Tunnel. It's the most wonderful infrastructure project that was built by the British and the French in Antoine Cordial. And it works incredibly well. So you're in Paris within two, two and a half hours. It's two and a half hours from Big Bend to the Eiffel Tower, 17 minutes under the English Channel, 10 departures a day for like$100.

30:59Rick Steves:It's amazing. It's the most amazing thing. And now it's strange because I still think it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. But people, I think, just they don't see it anymore. They take it for granted, which, you know, shows it's working in a way. And then you get to Paris and you change stations. So maybe you'll get the metro or you could walk if you have the time. And then I'm going off to Strasbourg and I'm going on a walking holiday in the Black Forest, which is, I believe, something you've covered on your show. And Strasbourg, that means crossroads. And with that kind of investment in infrastructure, everything is a crossroads.

31:34Rick Steves:That is so inspiring. Dan Richards, thanks so much for joining us. Have a good train trip tomorrow, and we'll look forward to talking to you again soon. My great pleasure. Lovely to speak to you. I would like to welcome you to this show. There's more about Dan Richards with today's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. Monisha Rajesh takes us on the trains of India. That's next on Travel with Rick Steves. One reason I tell people that India is my favorite travel destination has a lot to do with its trains. Even though it was decades ago, I still have vivid memories of cinders from the steam train mingling with the sweat and the bugs squished on my arm.

32:15Rick Steves:And each stop became a parade of India as people flooded on and off the train. A few years ago, British journalist Monisha Rajesh took four months to ride 80 trains to reach the farthest corners of India's rail system. Her book, Around India in 80 Trains, was a critical success. She also writes about passenger lines in Europe, Asia, and North America, in Around the World in 80 Trains. And Monisha explores night trains in her latest title, Moonlight Express. Monisha, welcome back to Travel with Rick Steves. Thank you for having me. Now, you're from a family of Indian heritage, but you were born and raised in Britain, right?

32:54Yes, I was born and grew up in the UK. And I moved to India very briefly when I was nine in 1991. my parents tried to move back to Chennai. It was Madras at the time. We lasted a couple of years and then went back to the UK. And it was only 20 years later that I decided to go back to India and just visit it as a tourist.

33:15Rick Steves:Yeah. Now, I understand that you're a journalist and you were going to write an article about Indian cities and air travel and you ended up writing about train travel. Is that right? Yeah. I wanted to go back to India and kind of reassess my relationship with it, I suppose, because I'd left when I was a kid was not a great sort of taste in my mouth. And I wanted to just kind of reset that. And I knew I wanted to go out to India, meet young Indians, find out what the country was really like and just get under the skin of it. And I realized very quickly that the best way to do that was via the railways.

33:48It just allowed me to come into contact with people, chat to people and get firsthand stories in a way that no other method of transport would.

33:55Rick Steves:Well, let's talk first about this great network, because it is, I mean, there's good and bad parts of a colonial legacy, I suppose. And one thing India, can you say, is blessed with is an amazing train system? It is, yes. And, you know, it is one of those tricky things where apologists for empire will say, but we gave you the railways. And, you know, it wasn't a gift. It wasn't benevolent from the British. It was probably used to move natural resources out of India. Very much used for plunder, looting, cotton, iron, and Indians weren't even allowed to ride on them, despite having funded them. But, you know, there is this network that's, you know, more than 65 ,000 kilometers of track.

34:37And the trains, you know, express trains, mail trains, steam trains, luxury trains, they get into every nook and cranny of the country, northeast, south and west, in a way that no airline will ever get you. And it's very tricky to drive, too.

34:51Rick Steves:You wrote in your book that you spent four months and you traveled 40 ,000 kilometers. That would be 24 ,000 miles, cut it in half and add 10%. And you mentioned that that was about the circumference of the earth. And you drank about 1 ,000 cups of sweet tea. And what a great way to sample India. And you wrote that you actually, what was that, in 2010, you lost your heart to the Indian railways. So tell us about how you were so enamored and romanced by the clickety-clack and the incredible crowds and the humanity of India pouring into each train. How did that steal your heart? You know, just hearing you talk about it, I can feel myself smiling.

35:35I love it. It just, it warms me straight away thinking about it. Indian Railways is a microcosm of India. It really is because you have eight classes on board the main trains. Eight classes? Eight classes, yeah. And you can go from first class up at the top where you've got politicians and, you know, business travelers right down to the bottom where you've got general class with fruit sellers, laborers, you know, everybody crammed in on slats and everybody in between.

36:02Rick Steves:Wait a minute. General class on slats. I remember that. Wooden slats. General class on wooden slats and people teaming in there. And at every stop, every stop is like a fantasy with the people who don't intend to be on that train, knowing they've got eight minutes here to get on that train and see if they can entertain and make a few pennies. Yeah. And they're still there and they're still doing it. And yet, you know, Indian Railways has absolutely developed and evolved. and they now have panoramic dome cars called Vista Dome carriages. They've got these new Van de Barat speed trains, but they still have the old ones because your everyday average Indian traveler can't afford all the fancy new trains and they still service everybody from top to bottom.

36:48So those clackety old trains that you still remember and the old toy trains with the smut coming off that comes on your arms, they're still there. They're still there.

36:57Rick Steves:Good. Well, you know, we have to remember class distinctions are built into Indian society like we can hardly imagine. And there's nowhere else that you see it than on the train so vividly. Because I remember being treated like a top class as a Western tourist, and a train station would feel like a teeming refugee camp after some kind of disaster to me. And then the sea would part, and I would be ushered right up to the VIP ticket office, and I would be treated like I was a different species almost. And I thought, wow, this is a way of life in India. Very much so. I mean, an Indian platform is just, it's delicious for a journalist because you've got everything happening all the time.

37:43You're constantly watching, you know, little dramas unfold. You can hear what people are saying about, you know, just everyday occurrences. You can see it all, you can hear it all, you can feel it all, and then you get on board and you've got it all around you.

37:56Rick Steves:And you wrote that a train ticket is like permission to trespass on the intimacies of other people's lives. Yeah, it is. And the best bit is people don't mind. And they do it back. They do it back to you. And it's very much a two-way thing where, I mean, you can't travel on an Indian train if you're an introvert in any way. And that goes with, there's a sort of every culture has a kind of social distance, right? I mean, in Norway, you have a different social distance than what we're comfortable with in the United States or in India. And in India, people can sit on your laps and not invade your privacy.

38:31I've had people put their babies on my lap through a window. A woman actually passed a baby through the window. I've seen that. Here, hold my baby.

38:38Rick Steves:I can't get on the train, but I'm going to scramble her on this other way. And if I don't make it, I might be on the rooftop. Yeah, here's the baby. Save a seat for me and I'll come around with the bags. Yeah, everything goes. Everything goes there. And I love that. I love the fact that it's not just that you end up being trusting, but people are very trusting of you innately again. And again, this is something that's really unique to train travel. That is unique. You're all working together. As soon as you said that, I said, well, that's the same all over when I'm on a train. We're all on this train together.

39:06Rick Steves:This takes us, we're all going to the same place. We're all stuck in this car. We all wish it was a little more comfortable, but we're all in this together. We're going to get it. And if we have the right attitude, we'll bring some memories out of it. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Monisha Rajesh. She's written a book called Around India in 80 Trains. She's also written Epic Train Journeys, and she's written a new book called Moonlight Express, Around the World by Night Train. To learn more about Monish's travels and her work, her website is monisharajesh.com. That's spelled R-A-J-E-S-H.

39:44Rick Steves:You do have to have a special attitude to fully appreciate and enjoy train travel, especially in India. Yeah, I think with train travel, You do have to have a certain kind of attitude. You have to be an extrovert. And I think the people who choose to travel by train are people who like to chat. They like to be around people. They like to travel as a community. I think it's very rare that you will find somebody who is averse to conversation or wants to be, you know, as an individual, just kept quiet. And the great thing about India is English is the universal language of travel and business in this subcontinent, which is linguistically as diverse as Europe, I think.

40:22Rick Steves:But you've got to have one language that works all across the board, and that would be English. So you will not find much of a language barrier, I do not think, while traveling by train in India. No, you're right. And that's why I was able to do the book with such ease, because no matter where I went, people spoke English. And even though I can read and write Hindi, I don't speak it brilliantly, so I was able to read station names. But even if someone wasn't fluent, somebody else would be. And you're in the fray, you know, and you can communicate with people. and after a few days of train travel in India, you realize you've got to stick up for yourself too.

40:55Rick Steves:There's a density of population that you won't incur in the United States or in Europe. I remember, and tell me if this is an experience you've had, in the struggle for a ticket in a ticket line, and there's these sweet little frail-looking ladies that are actually dynamos and very strong and very aggressive, and I'm a big, tall white guy, and they're just busting through me, And finally I go, okay, that was the great equalizer. Now I'm going to stick up for my spot in line here. And I would put my arm down on the railing and nobody's getting by me until I get my ticket. And it worked. But at the same time, it was kind of a fun jostling.

41:33Rick Steves:And it's just a way of life that I was not used to in Europe. I think the word you said there, fun, is absolutely spot on. It's not aggressive. It's not ill-meaning. Everyone's got elbows out. They're all pushing. But it's very, very short-lived. It is short-lived. It's weird. It's disharming. It's lovely, actually. It's oddly charming. So, Monisha, you traveled 40 ,000 kilometers in India on the train. Just share with us a few of the glimpses of Indian culture that you enjoyed, either on the train or looking out the window as you traveled. I think one of my favorite things is the sing-alongs.

42:11And I got this on the Darjeeling toy train, which is a seven-hour journey up the hills. and people will start singing a Bollywood song and then the whole carriage is going. And it was just one of those things that happened wherever I went.

42:24Rick Steves:Now you said hills. I remember hill stations when all over India, not just up in the Himalayas in the north, but there are ranges of hills that take you out of the heat and the intensity of the low country. And people who have the wherewithal to escape, they take the train. Is that what you mean by the hills, up into a hill station? Yes. So the hill stations, again, the legacy of the British, were built to basically escape to the cooler climes. And the hill stations now where the trains still run are Darjeeling. And then there's a train from Calcutta, Shimla as well. And also one in the south from Uti to Metapalium.

43:00Rick Steves:Oh, you know, I just thought of one of my most beautiful experiences and memories in India. And it's a kind of, it's similar to a train ride, but it's a boat ride up some beautiful inner passage in Kerala. Do you know that? Did you ever do that trip? Allopi? On the backwaters? Yeah, the backwaters. And it went from village to village like a train. And I sat on the roof of the boat. It was like a little post boat or something like that, going from town to town and commuters coming on and going. And I just was observing this constant parade of idyllic, magical Indian society in my favorite province of India, Kerala.

43:35Rick Steves:K-E-R-E-L-A. Yeah, I love Kerala. It's one of the greenest, loveliest, most lush states in the country. It's usually where I end up after I finished a big journey in India, where I just go to kind of relax and calm. So with using this train network that was an inheritance of the British colonial age, you can actually get a train pass, can't you? I believe you had a 90-day rail pass for about$500. Oh, but you said that's no longer available. It's not available anymore, which is quite sad. So it was 90 days,$540. And that was in 2010. And that included all my sleeper trains at second class and quite a lot of my food.

44:17So it was a bargain.

44:19Rick Steves:So now how do you do it? Is there a train pass or do you just buy tickets as you go? Do you get tickets online? Just buy tickets as you go. And everything's online now. Everything's digitized. You can't even get those lovely printed out tickets with serrated edges in different colors for each region. Can you buy an upper class ticket and venture into the lower classes just for your own fun? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, you can still do that. You can still do what you want on Indian trains. Yeah, it's not as regimented as German, I don't think. No, no, not at all. The first book Monisha Rajesh wrote in 2012 was Around India in 80 Trains.

44:51Rick Steves:Her latest title is Moonlight Express Around the World by Night Train. She's joining us on Travel with Rick Steves from her home base in London. So tell us a little more about the eight classes that you might choose from. Oh, wow. Again, that depends on what you want. So first class, air conditioned, two private berths, a hard door that actually pulls across and locks. Then you've got two AC, which is, again, air conditioned, second class. But you have four berths and a sort of material curtain that goes across the corridor and then two berths on the other side. So it's still open, but you've got more privacy and tinted windows.

45:30So you can't really see what's going on outside. And then third class is six berths and it's not air conditioned. I mean, one is air conditioned. Then there's a third class that is air conditioned. One isn't. One is. And then it sort of moves down to sort of general and then sitting class. I mean, it's all split up so much in complex little ways, but it just depends what journey you're doing. So if you're doing an hour, you're fine in general class. You can just sit on the regular seats, look out the window. If you're doing a 48-hour journey, I would say travel in 2AC. First class if you want, but you don't really get all the fun and the interaction.

46:09You're very closed off from people. And I know a lot of first-timers to India prefer that. It's not for me. I like to chat to everyone. I like to see what's going on.

46:16Rick Steves:The irony, if you spend more money, think you're going to get more experience. You're absolutely wrong. counterintuitively, spending more money brings you out of the joy of India and into a world filled with people who spent more money so they wouldn't have to be there. Yeah. I think that's kind of a harsh way to put it, but I think your 2AC would be a good compromise for that. But always remember you can venture into the other classes and you will be part of the party instead of observing it from a distance. I have fond memories of food in the stations. What's your advice for eating in the stations?

46:52Rick Steves:For one thing, fast turnover means safer food for the Western traveler. It does. Some of the trains are very, very well known for what they call pantry cars. And they have dining cars on board. You can't sit in them, but they have everything cooked fresh on board. And then the hawkers come through and sell it to you. And it's all the hot, deep fried food is the safest food to have. It's cooked then and there. It's cooked in front of you. You're very safe. Okay, so I was thinking about on the platform, but actually on the train, they have these pantry cars, and then they bring it around, or you didn't order it, they're bringing it, or do you actually order it, then they bring it to you?

47:30No, they just bring it. They bring it, and it's great fun, because you'll see them come up with a basket, and they'll be yelling. And you'll have one of those.

47:36Rick Steves:We'll look at two of those. Yeah, and so you lift up the thing and say, what have you got there? Oh, chicken lollipops. Yep, I'll have a couple of them. Oh, hot samosas. Have one of them. Chicken biryani. I'll have a pot of that. It's great fun, because you never know what's coming. Tell me more. Do more of that. Like I'm closing my eyes and imagining this beautiful food. Tell me more. Tell me more. But the other fun thing is that certain stations are renowned for certain hawkers who are there and passengers around you will tell you the next station. This guy does really great, you know, deep fried samosas.

48:06Hop off and get them when we get there. And people will dart off, grab them and come back.

48:10Rick Steves:This is travel. Oh, I love it. And that would be what you write about in your book Around India in 80 Trains. We've been talking with Monisha Rajesh, and her website is monisharajesh.com. That's R-A-J-E-S-H. And Monisha, you have really stoked my travel wanderlust. I want to somehow get back on those trains in India and enjoy the unforgettable experience of exploring one of the most fascinating countries in the world and one of the greatest train systems in the world. Thanks, Monisha. Thank you for having me. Happy travels. Thank you. You can listen to Monisha Rajesh's earlier visit with us about riding night trains around the world.

48:54Rick Steves:It's in the Travel with Rick Steves show archives from last January. It reminded a listener named Mary about an unforgettable train trip of her own in India. She wrote us this comment in our radio travel forum at ricksteves.com. Mary writes, I just love listening to Rick visit with Monisha Rajesh about the wonders of train travel. One of my favorite experiences was when my husband and I worked in the Arctic of Russia and traveled from St. Petersburg to Helsinki on a Russian train. We literally had the first-class car all to ourselves, a gorgeous car, an equally gorgeous samovar, and a conductor who checked our passports every 30 minutes, something we'll never forget.

49:34Rick Steves:Another travel highlight for me was taking an overnight sleeper train from Agra in India to Bikhanar. The train was late, of course, but so very well worth the wait. I ended up in a car with the most beautiful family from Uttar Pradesh, who were traveling around their stunning country. I immediately became friends with the two teenage daughters when I offered them chocolate bars. We never slept, enjoying one another's company too much and greeted the sun together with the calls of the train's chai vendor, offering the most exquisite chai I had ever tasted. We continue to communicate via WhatsApp regularly and are planning a reunion when the girls finish university.

50:14Rick Steves:If you ever have a chance to take a train to Beconor, don't pass it up. Friendships in a beautiful station are awaiting you. You can add your comments to what Mary has written about what you hear on Travel with Rick Steves by posting to the listener travel forum at ricksteves.com slash radio. Travel with Rick Steves is produced by Tim Tatton, Kaz Muralhall, and Donna Bardsley at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington. Affiliate relations are by Sheila Gerzoff, Website uploads are by Andrew Wakeling and Sherry Court. Our theme music is by Jerry Frank. Special thanks to the BBC in London for studio help this week.

50:55Rick Steves:We'll look for you next week with more Travel with Rick Steves. Hey, I'm Rick Steves. Thanks for listening. In our online travel store, you can choose from 80 different Rick Steves guidebooks covering just about every country, region, and major city in Europe, as well as books on history, art, Italian food, cruising, and festivals, plus phrasebooks and planning maps. You'll find my favorite bag, the one I designed and I live out of for 100 days a year, and a selection of other custom-designed bags, backpacks and wheeled bags big and small, plus a selection of accessories that experienced travelers won't leave home without.

51:35Rick Steves:It's all at ricksteves.com.