Wednesday 9th March - Chai Korfee! Chai Korfee!

Early start again today. All breakfasted and on parade with full kit for 8.15. We say goodbye to the Cindrella and for the last time leap aboard the boneshakers and head off to New Jalpaiguri again - but this time the main, broad gauge station. Our guide has a lively, almost confrontational, conversation with a bunch of red coated porters who then load up with our luggage (3 or 4 pieces each) and head off at a cracking pace towards the platform. The place is full of Sikh soldiers as there is a troop train in the station.
Our train comes in about 20 minutes late and there is a frantic scrum of D@Lers and porters, who eventually give up on trying to get all of our luggage on the racks. We finish up having to stack cases in the doorway - alright until the train stops with the platform on that side.
This train is much less ritzy than those we have travelled on previously. It has one single air conditioned second class chair car that we half fill, and the rest of the train is made up of general class seating with no glass in the windows. Our car has a plaque stating that it was rehabilitated in 2006 - presumably from the scrapyard. Several of the seats refuse to stay upright, the windows are held together with gaffer tape and the lights flicker constantly. Only the a/c works properly at a level which persuades several of the group to don fleeces. Outside it is in the high 30s C.
Standing in the open doorways of the train we head southwards across Bengal which is absolutely flat and mainly very rural. A lot of rice is grown here and it was interesting to see different stages in the cultivation cycle in adjacent fields. Some of the fields were being ploughed using pairs of oxen and old wooden ploughs.
The long journey was enlivened by the constant flow of hawkers and vendors. Never more than five minutes went by without the cry of "Chai, korfee! Chai, korfee!" (Tea, coffee) Chai is made by pouring hot spiced, sweetened milk onto a tea bag. It isn't as bad as it sounds. One chap offered lemon chai, without milk but with so much sugar as to be undrinkable. Indians consider people who drink tea without sugar to be certifiable lunatics.
As we moved south the variety of goods on sale increased - snacks, peanuts, coconut slices, cakes, biscuits, books, newspapers, blankets, tablecloths (!) and toys and probably other things were paraded through the train. At one point we were even treated to a dispute between two sets of chai vendors, presumably about who got to sell in which coach. Towards the end of our trip a chai wallah appeared who was selling in traditional clay pots, the original single use packaging. We couldn't miss the chance to sample and it did taste better.
After numerous signal halts we eventually pulled into an eerily deserted Kolkata station two hours late. The coach had been waiting 5 hours for some inexplicable reason. The traffic was fairly quiet and we were soon at the Peerless Inn and having a late buffet dinner. D ordered two Kingfishers without realising that they were over £5 each! We need to find an off licence.
Everybody was absolutely shattered.