Sleeper Class details & photos.

mepu06

I hear you Steve and I agree with you wholeheartedly!

My subsequent comment was not referred to your posts, which I have already praised

I was just saying that we sometimes attach too much significance to a choice of carriage. Not your case though.

Ryan7611

I am in India now for the first time. It is day 15. Last week, I hooked up with 3 other travelers and we took a sleeper from Pathankot to Jodhpur. I was a little worried that I would not like it because of some of the negatives expressed here. dirty, crowded, etc...but i figured i would go with the flow.

I would never travel anything other than sleeper class. no need for me to see the other classes definitely the 'real india' as described here. Friendly, curious, inquisitive people make a 20 hour ride just as enjoyable as the country itself. just like everything else here, you need to embrace india whole-heartedly, experience things, live within an India mindset and forget your old mindset. things are different here, a little less comfortable and convenient, but different in what i think a very good way

LilBoy BigTown

Happy to hear you enjoying your time in India Ryan. How many 'chai's' through that 20 hour journey ?

steadyfriend

Hi Ryan,
I share the sentiments you've expressed. I too love travelling in the sleeper class ( unless it is unbearably hot !) and enjoy meeting/speaking to the co-passengers. I am happy you've enjoyed your time in India so far. Good luck and God bless.

Ryan7611

well, there is usually guy screaming 'chai' and walking the aisle at 5 am. so i put down 4 to wake up. then usually cool it for the rest of the day. but the train chai is the best ive had.... also took a sleeper from Jodhpur to Mumbai and then Mumbai to Goa..... similar experiences.

Brisso

Hmmm, plastic cup and tea bag doesn't do it for me - can have that at home. What happened to the terracotta clay cups and proper marsala chai?

goingback

We have decided to bring travel fleece blankets for our sleeper class train travel in November. We may borrow the cabin blankets on our flight over then return them, maybe a little dirty on the way back!
Seriously though, sleeping in our clothes (no jackets) but fleece tops and thick socks with our travel blankets will be ok won't it? We are only concerned if the children may feel the cold, we two can manage.

machadinha

November, where in India?

Could well be rather balmy still. Still though, having unexpectedly & unforeseenly frozen (turned out later to have been around 7C; can get colder of course, and it will no doubt be on a half-open moving steel train) my behind off once in Sleeper Class by night in winter in the northern plains (more mid-Dec.-early Feb. though, and it will vary locally per year of course), I since much prefer traveling around anywhere with a light blanket (easily and cheaply bought on the ground, or nicked from your airplane indeed -- the latter not very warm though, and my last company's accommodating just a person sitting, not one lying down. I always wondered what scrooging sadist designed those Those really wouldn't suffice in real winter btw) that I don't use than the other way around. That one experience was really no fun, I guarantee, and I'll have described it before; and I certainly wouldn't want to put my children through it.

Fleece blanket shouldn't be too much to carry & should do the trick (the mountains can get really really cold though); clothes you can wear in layers if needs be also come in very handy for insulation.

In the South, none of this should be a concern year-round; although it will have its hilly and lower mountainous areas that can get markedly cool if not just outright cold, and for instance parts of Central India may still drop to literally freezing in (the arguably short) winter. (It can be so short and sudden that even say early or late Nov. may make a huge difference, and then again it will vary.)

Another thing is once you've become acclimatized after a bit of traveling, you may well start finding the lower or even higher 20C's decidedly chilly just like the Indians do. Even traveling there last spring (Indian summer really) with daytime temps going up to the lower 40C's, and with your hotel fan on at low speed, I'd often find myself reaching for my blankie in the early morning.

So esp. with kids, I wouldn't consider it an unnecessary luxury no. Again, better to curse that stupid blanket you're carrying along than have it the other way around. If it turns out to be totally unnecessary for your entire further planned trip, send it home, leave it in your hotel room where it will find its rightful owner, or give away to street dweller.

So in short,

Yes, save for the mountains (sturdy sleeping bag perhaps more in order), that should really cut it. And you may just find it superfluous; better safe than sorry, and all that.

Have a look also at this entire thread for some general idea: India climate chart.

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goingback

Cheers Machadinha,
We are travelling from Agra to Varanasi and then 3 days later, Varanasi to Kolkata, mid November. I love your use of the term "blankie" - just like our five year old!

machadinha

That's just how I felt in those mornings Cheers, give the kid our blessings

ps Yes, hm, that area, mid-Nov., should be pretty balmy still I guess, no real worries. Maybe just fleece blankets (or blankets bought locally, will cost you maybe Rs. 150 or so a piece, perhaps double that) for the kids then. Light sweater maybe. No more should really be required, and you really may find them all superfluous.

I don't know, like I said I'd rather be safe than sorry. After all the above, sure enough on a later trip to Rajasthan in mid-winter my girlfriend was laughing at me for having wanted to bring a sleeping bag. Needless to say, that year the weather was pretty fair.

It just varies. (And having a fever at some point, I was in fact still happy to have brought said sleeping bag.) Kolkata will probably just be warm btw, it has a different climate than the plains it seems. Slept on an open rooftop there in early Jan. no problem (well, with me blankie I guess ), but then again I'm sure it too will vary.

stevec

Thanks for this great information. On my last visit to India I wimped out and travelled 1st class sleeper. I can add that there I know for sure the power sockets are safe and useful. I took a MacBook and all the other bits, so I added a powerboard. This was a great conversation starter - invite other passengers to use your powerboard to charge their phones. Word travels round the carriage. I learnt this from my son-in-law, thanks Glenn.

Beijing2009

Thanks Steven for the detailed info, it's so helpful!