Said to be the best legacy of the British Raj, is the nationwide train network that links almost everywhere to everywhere else. This was no mean feat as India is a vast, vast nation: the Himsagar Express train journey–meaning ‘snow and sea’–runs between Kanyakumari in India’s southernmost state, Tamil Nadu and Jammu Tawi, in Jammu & Kashmir, the northernmost state, covers a distance of 3751 km and takes nearly 75 hours with no changes — ponder this for a moment; compare it to a major UK train journey from say Cardiff to London, which takes a little over 2 hours (when there’s no engineering works…).

Although actually buying a train ticket is a miniture pain-in-the-bum, once aboard and rolling it is a very pleasant experience, relative to other available modes of transport here. For a soft-introduction to India’s rail network, I booked myself in a second class (there appear to be four classes) bed for the princely sum of about £4 for a 5-6 hour journey. I was absolutely exhausted from the sleep deprivation of the Diwali firecrackers of the last three nights and so fell sound asleep almost immediately. Imagine my surprise to wake-up an hour later, facing three beady-eyed Indian men sitting opposite me wondering why on earth I’m having a kip on the lower bunk. I soon worked out that daytime journey protocol here is to take the upper bunk, to allow others to sit on the lower one.