I've always wondered what it's like to travel using the last train home. I've yet to ride the traditional old school trains back in my home country but I have ridden other modern set trains available in Lahore Cantt.
It was my sister's Walima in Lahore, Us, a family of 4 and extended family members of 5 others rode the train with the family AC sleeper cabin. In the winter of Early January, in a compartment cabin of the Lahore Rail train. We embarked on a 18 hour long journey. I hadn't traveled by train by that age then but It was pretty exciting. We booked two units, one large cabin held 6 ladies of our family while the other held 3 elderlies.
The cabin had 6 beds that were mounted on opposite walls, 2 of the lower beds could be lifted upwards and into the wall to become cushiony part of the train seat while the highest bed was left open. I being the youngest had to climb the steel ladder to get to the top bed. The experience was nice for a long journey but I was quite suffocated. I didn't enjoy climbing down or up and I wasnt exactly fond of the bathrooms the trains had. But I did like the aisles outside our cabin.
I had downloaded a film too. Train to Busan, 🙂 I'm not sure why I decided to torture myself in my first night in the train, it ended well. The next morning, we finally crossed the first farming sites of Punjab. I sat by the aisle seat, on the small flip table with a tea cup on it and candy biscuits. It was a foggy morning, and it was pure bliss!
Here in Dubai, I dont get to travel on longer hours cause the metro exists only in Dubai. The longest ride is 1 hour 42 minutes which is the red line. I love the Metro. For an introvert like myself, I am fond of finding an empty train in under the blue lights of the women's section. The train rides are mostly quiet. Although short, I always find my mind wandering in these metro rides with background music on my Spotify app.
I love traveling at night, be it bus, car or train or even an airplane. Don't get me started on late night flights. That's another story for another one of my blogs. It's a bit personal to me.
It's the interior of the Dubai metro that really makes me comfortable. They say the color blue, a shade of sea and ocean blue 💙 makes the heart feel relaxed. Although a generic color, this blue has always calmed me. It's also the respect that each of the passenger has for each other. I've also traveled trains and underground trains in Singapore and Japan. Comparatively it's Dubai Metro > Japan's Shinjuku line > Singapore train. No hate to the train in Singapore, it's just i kept sliding from left to right on the seating row on the first train from airport to the main city.
Particularly because of how crowded Japanese train stations are. I remember slamming a poor university student to the wall while trying to get my baggage out waiting for my girls to group in. That boy must have seen the stars in the sky.
I think my dream of riding trains stemmed from the Harry Potter Movies when Harry meets his his friends for the first time, and how Majestic the Hogwarts Express train looked and how delicious and scrumptious the food cart appeared. Everything was magical.