Mumbai, the toilet attendant and the night train - gulp.

The majority of the girls were dreading the idea of a night train, mostly from a combination of stories and the general unknown. I suppose the idea of spending 8 hours hugging your belongings on a train full of strangers isn't everyone's idea of fun!

If you like to travel in comfort this is something that you will probably never experience so feel free to skip this! The tour guide put an emphasis on the 'basic' level of our tour. It's great for backpackers wanting to cover ground on a budget and it obviously gets you to your next destination while saving money on accommodation!

We arrived at Ahmedabad station to many stares and found our way to the AC'd waiting room where we could eat our Takeaway Thali. Yum. FYI - the salad doesn't travel well.

While in the waiting room, one of the girls went to brush her teeth in the washroom before being chased away by a little old lady. She proceeded to follow our friend and started shouting at us in Hindi while making lots of hand gestures. We couldn't really work out why, we exchanged confused looks and tried to say we didn't understand. A local had to help us out. It ended up having something to do with a blocked toilet and/or not paying enough for toilet usage....something along those lines. Please for a moment imagine a small Indian lady attempting to gesture "blocked toilets" to confused tourists, and you can imagine the bizarre turn our long day was taking. Was this the toilet attendant? Had we incurred her wrath?

It ended with our guide coming over looking bemused and paying her some more before she finally toddled off. We never did get to the bottom of the problem, that toilet was long blocked before we came. Just sayin'.

We also managed to get seats to eat our food right in front of the men's loo. Privacy isn't that important here, it was a wonderful view to eat to. I won't repeat the words used or describe the view.

We boarded, made our beds, fretted a little, laughed at our lives and then fell asleep. Well most of us did. There are 8 beds in a carriage. It's a little noisy, earplugs and eye covers are recommended! We were lucky, some of the group ended up near families with very curious children asking them questions well into the night. Security does patrol the area. In a group, I felt pretty safe. Despite the fear-mongering between the girls, theft is the biggest concern, so we slept with our day bags by our heads. If you have a particularly big head this might be an issue.

I slept like a log much to everyone's frustration, but I'm a small female, anyone taller than 5ft 9 would have struggled to get vaguely comfortable! We agreed to go to the bathroom in pairs, possibly to be recommended as it can feel a little frightening at 3 am wondering through long trains having people stare at you. We woke up in Mumbai, surprise surprise, for our one night stay.