Lu's Days ...

Hmm ..... seems like I've forgot to talk about my experience back in Bombay. For the what-we-did-when kinda thing in Bombay, you guys can check out Rohit's blog. Don't worry, his blog only has a little bit of writing and lots of pictures.

For me, I wanna talk about the interesting stuff that I've experienced back in Bombay. I call it ..... "Bombay Train of Death" !!



Bombay Train of Death .... the next station is ....... point-of-no-return


Bombay itself is a big city. It is separated into many regions. In order to travel from one region to another, you will need to take the train within the city.

Now, this train contains many elements of death that can readily take away the lives of innocent foreigners who are not smart and quick enough to adapt.

First, the train is packed. No no, I don't mean pack. I mean, PACKED PACKED ! Is it rush hour packed ? No. We went on the train on a weekend afternoon, and it was crazy packed. You can easily suffocate in the middle of the crowd during the summer time in the Indian summer heat.



Try not to focus on how stupid I look, but more on the crowd ........ hey, I said the crowd, damnit !


So, what do the locals do if the train is packed and they still need to get on ? That is where the second element of death comes in: they hang from the train. I kid you not.

Technically, the train itself do have doors. But since the doors are pretty much opened 24/7, I won't considered them as doors. People hang from the door of the train while the train is moving at a speed of 80+km/hr.

What do they hold onto ? Well, there are basically 3 choices :
a) the pole near the door
b) the door frame
c) other passengers

Can't picture this ? Neither can I. So, as always, a photo says it all.


I almost got hit by one of those guys because I was standing too close when taking the picture.


Ah, so that brings me to the third element of death. The train platform. Since the guys are hanging from the train, they tend to jump off to the platform before the train comes to a full stop. Some of them, those who knows nothing about the elements of death, jump off while the train is still going close to full speed. So if you are standing too close on the platform while the guys jump off, guess what would happen ? Nothing pretty.

That pretty much sums up how safe the Bombay train of death is. When I asked Rohit's brother-in-law whether people die from the train ride or not, his response was "Yeah .... about 10 to 20 per day".

Hmm ..... 10 to 20 people die PER DAY, EVERYDAY, and the government doesn't do anything about it ........ ahhh, the wonders of India .......