making my way downtown walking fast faces past and I'm homebound
it came literally all the way from delhi 2000 kilometers away
2500 kilometers or something I don't know like a flooded rice paddy field
with cows standing like literally water was like up to the bellies and then we actually have a functioning
bathroom so hot water and they have hot water
in our last video we told you everything about how we booked our train tickets now what we didn't
tell you is that we were only able to book train tickets in third class so today we are
going to travel down south towards pondicherry in third class and we're very very excited for
this experience this is because we don't know what to expect and it's basically our very very first
time taking a train in India so I cannot wait to see what is going to happen today
so guys today we are riding in third class AC on the pondicherry express now this train actually came all the way from Delhi and it's
headed in a direction obviously of pondicherry because that's our next destination now third
class AC basically they give you the choice of having a lower middle or an upper berth
everybody just seems to be on the lower ones it seems to be a really great way of meeting
a lot of locals and talking to people because a lot of people are engaged in conversation
here some people are obviously just keeping to themselves but this place this train is a very
very special experience for sure because it's our very very first experience on an Indian train it's
very very laid back it's very quiet it's very peaceful and the only thing that I wish was a
little bit nicer was the AC itself because it's pretty pretty hot right now another thing that
we probably don't really have to mention because it's obvious is that the bathrooms are quite dirty
here but that's normal this train has been coming all the way from Delhi down south here all the
way to pondicherry transporting probably I don't know a few hundred people so the toilets are
a little bit on the scary side but it is okay so like we've just used the toilet before going on
the train and you will be fine and for all the westerners out there maybe two travel Essentials
when you do take a train hand sanitizer and baby wipes another thing that is surprisingly oh hello
another thing that is surprisingly convenient is power plugins so I don't know actually if our
plugins will fit into those we would have to try it out because India has a little bit of a mix of
power plugins from what it seems like it's sort of the the ones that we use in Ireland but then
there's also a different one with this just like a round thing on the top and yeah but you have power
plugins so you can charge your equipment here as well and obviously lie down and take a nap if you
want to or have to take a break I'm sure if you're on this train for one and a half days two days all
the way from Delhi to Tamil Nadu I'm sure that you you will have to sleep at some stage so it's
probably very very good to be able to just lie down here and relax for a little while and yeah
I think overall it's a very comfortable situation to be in I think next time we are going to be on
a train we will probably book third class again because it's very convenient it's comfortable
it's quiet why not this is obviously the first of many trains that we're planning on taking
throughout all of India we have three months here to explore this incredible country and we're very
very excited because India is known for its train Network it has one of the most expansive train
networks I think in all of the world so we're very very excited to explore more of that this
train itself absolutely perfect for what we paid and for being a third class AC it's really really
amazing and to be honest it's even better than a lot of the European Network trains that we've
taken in the past you have full-on beds that you can literally just relax in if there's one free
and then seeing a lot of people going and taking those beds and they're just laid out relaxing so
it's so so nice and it's a good atmosphere it's really really just a laid-back atmosphere on this
train and definitely would agree with Naomi and book third class again for sure as I was saying
the train Network Here is known for being absolutely incredible and there's a whole list
of trains that are very very famous amongst Indian people and amongst amongst Travelers as well such
as the Duronto Express I believe is one and I'm not too sure about the other names but I do have a
list thanks to you guys commenting down below you told us all about the different trains that we can
take so now we have a full-on list that we can go to and hopefully we can tick them all off as we're
traveling through India the natural beauty and the surroundings that we have seen on this train
ride are pretty crazy you see some really really beautiful sights and it's so incredibly green
and Luscious as well so many palm trees and green Open Fields and rice paddies it's such a special
experience to be able to see we also saw like a flooded rice paddy field with cows and standing
like literally water was like up to their bellies chest high water which was absolutely very unique
to experience and I've never seen that before actually to be honest but
um this whole experience has just been out of this world we're actually coming very very close now
to pondicherry and something that um Naomi and I just realized is that pondicherry or puducherry
is not a part of Tamil Nadu it's kind of like a Union state of India that's like broken away
from Tamil Nadu but it is kind of situated in the middle of the state of Tamil Nadu so it's
very very interesting and this place used to be a French Colony that's what it's most known for and
it's apparently a very popular tourist destination for French people so we're gonna have to maybe
learn a little bit of French or I don't know if you don't know we're gonna have to see
that's one big step
all right made it here all the way to pondicherry no idea where we have to go
yeah we're gonna figure it out though it kind of looks like a lot of people are walking that
way even though exit is mentioned over there so I don't know do you know where to go I don't think
he knew either nobody knows we are going to figure out where we have to go Google map says it's in
that way where all of the other people are walking so what is the name of our accommodation veeras
residency v e e r there one kilometer walk okay yeah now this way is wrong we have to go this way
so guys welcome to pondicherry we made our way out of the train station
into the center or what it looks like the center of pondicherry
and now we're pretty much just making our way towards our accommodation
making our way downtown that's right walking fast faces past and I'm homebound
there you go yeah making our way to the accommodation pretty excited also pretty
tired uh the train actually hungry yeah we're both very hungry uh so we definitely need some food
plus something I want to say guys that train was absolutely
amazing and it was perfectly on time as well it ran literally to the minute
on schedule which really just blew my mind because India as as you guys know totally massive country
but they have their train system down perfectly it came literally all the way from Delhi which
is like what two thousand two thousand kilometers away 2500 kilometers or something I don't know much
more than two thousand kilometers and it still ran on time how's that like possible yeah it's
crazy it would never happen anywhere else yeah all right we just arrived in our accommodation
and it's a very pleasant actually a lot better than I thought it would be when we when Luke
booked it actually turned out really well so I basically uh went based off of Google reviews
and it had like 300 positive reviews out of like 305 so very very um positively surprised this is
big double bed obviously you have a power plug-in next to the bed on both sides which is
um something that we really look for because we're always charging our stuff we have cameras
and laptops and everything we have a TV which we've never used um anywhere that we travel to
really just maybe if it's a smart TV we'll use like Netflix or something at the end we have a
AC which is uh becoming less and less important to us but we will definitely use it here because
it's very hot today for some reason and then we actually have a functioning bathroom which we
didn't have in the first place when we were in Chennai we had a shower but the shower head was
really damaged and it was kind of like hanging down from the ceiling but this one actually I'm
gonna do a Harold Baldr here yep that seems to be perfect and it's actually clean as
well and it seems to be fully functioning too but yeah we're very very happy and this comes
to 20 like 24 Euro a night not bad I never thought I would see you uh impersonate Harold Baldr
I like Harold Baldr don't get me wrong we also have a
coffee maker tee and coffee maker uh well a kettle which if you know me I'm Irish this is perfect so hot
water and they have hot hot water so yeah it doesn't get much better than this guys we also
have a fan which is doing its thing right now um I don't know like what that's supposed to be
there's nothing coming off of it really but we're gonna we're gonna have to use
the AC for sure I turned it down because it was so loud it it sounds like we're going
to lift off oh there you go
yeah we're taking off yeah but it's like super loud so our room is an attack helicopter we're
going to fly away helicopter helicopters so we're all checked in now to pondicherry and
um the guy at the reception asked us to pay just after we saw the room there we're very very very
pleasantly surprised and happy with the room itself so we went straight to the ATM and we
managed to take out the necessary amount now guys if you're watching this as someone who's
from Europe and you maybe have a European card if you're looking for somewhere that won't charge you
crazy amounts of commission there's two banks that we have found that work really really well
for us the first one is HDFC bank that actually has zero commission and then you also have Indian
Bank yeah we just went to the Indian Bank there and it's very very close to our accommodation
and there we also paid zero commission and we went to a different ATM beforehand where
we had to pay a little bit of commission it was not a crazy amount I see I see the icic yeah um
we went to the ikiki bank before we had to pay commission there so
um in case you ever do come to India and you are from Europe or have a European Bank Indian bank
and hdfc seem to be working fine so far HDFC and Indian Bank guys but yeah we're gonna go
head back into our accommodation both of us are feeling pretty hungry so I think we're
gonna just have a quick little bite to eat as well and yeah relax for a while so guys
that was our very first big train experience sorry that was tough to get out I'm feeling
pretty exhausted first Indian train experience the pondicherry express from Chennai wow what
an experience very very pleasant experience and the first thing by the way that I noticed about
pondicherry is that you can buy grapes here pretty much in every single store no idea why
and like we saw some grapes in Chennai as well but not as much as here in pondicherry so yeah
it's interesting and maybe we're onto something there maybe yeah it's interesting as well to see
all of the French Colonial architecture it's a very different vibe and aspect than it is
in comparison to where we came from in Chennai um totally different and we're very very excited to
bring you guys another video after this one where we're going to explore around this amazing place I
cannot wait I'm so excited to explore pondicherry absolutely but for guys but for now just for the
guys my name is Luke my name is Naomi we are the two mad explorers and this is your reminder to
keep exploring see you guys in the next Indian Adventure thank you for watching bye bye peace