Bedbugs on South Indian Rail

Hi all,

My aim is not to start a panic, but more to stress a warning about bedbugs on South Indian Rail. The last two over night trains I have taken I've been attacked by bedbugs. The first time was about a month ago on a train from Chennai to Kanyakumari traveling 2AC. The second time was last night traveling Kochi to Mysore on 3AC. On both occasions the conductors did sweet F**k all and let me suffer. The first attack I received 159 bites the second 22. The only way this will be fixed is by complaining on mass and getting South Indian Rail to admit the issue and take charge. I would love to hear your stories if anyone has experienced something similar.

Adam a.k.a Mr Itchy.

Look at the first post here.

Did you report your bed bug experience to Indian Rail? I'm sure it happens a lot (although I have probably caught 100 trains in India and only experienced bed bugs twice), but my point is that people have to report or the problem will never be resolved.

Yes, i did. Don't know what happened afterwards.

Haha prob sweet F**k all, unless you provided 'gift'. Thanks

I am sorry to hear about your ordeal Adam. It is certainly making me weary to take a train. I am EXTREMELY allergic to the little buggers - only been bitten on one occassion, but it took weeks for swelling to go down and boy, did it itch and ache! I do hope you are not that allergic.
Btw I never came across them in India (fortunately)
The only thing one can do is report it to train authorities whoever they are and of course even if berth is "debugged" someone can bring them in with luggage or clothing again.
Thanks for posting this, I will certainly take some bugspray along on my next train journey just in case.

Thank you. Yeah the experience has made me a little less fond of rail travel in India which is a shame because the trains are a huge part of the country and the 'Indian experience'.

indiayes, going by Adam's own records, it occurred only in 2% cases. So don't worry too much.

Didn't quite get you. Would you mind taking some time to explain that language ? Hope that this is allowed here.

Haha. F**k means funk. It's a style of music, often bass driven, popular in the 70's, but made a small resurgence in the 90's. James Brown is very funky check him out.

Make sure that you don't bring the problem back home. Although I never had this problem, but if I do, I will throw all my clothes after I return back from India. In fact, I would just dump the whole bag in trash and remove all my clothes in car garage, go inside house naked to get a trash bag and pack those clothes from garage into the trash bag and throw them away. Then I would take a shower.

These nasty things are very difficult to get rid of. You should do everything to stop the infestation in the first place.

Thanks. I was worried about taking them with me, so I had a big wash of my clothes and pack. Hopefully I'm not spreading them around Indian hotels.