We took an auto to the station at 5.20 this morning and the guy got caught in the warren of lanes. He had to push the vehicle backwards and out of alleys blocked by cows or parked bikes a few times and I think he acquired a couple of new dents. He certainly overcharged us, but it's hard to be upset sometimes. We waited for the train which was only half an hour late and I watched some puppies sleeping on large sacks. One of them had made friends with a dead rat, which made it look like the small dog's soft toy. I'd forgotten when we arrived, but Jodhpur station looked like a refugee camp - there were several hundred people lying on blankets in the main hall and we had to step over them to get to the platform.

Our first train of the day was to Ahmedabad, on the way to Mumbai. It took ten very long hours, but I did read one of the funniest books I've ever read, by a guy called Dave Gorman. It made me laugh out loud almost all the way through and it's a shame it only took four hours to read. Some people wanted to talk to Mikey so I caught up with my diaries a bit and dozed. It really was a very long, uninteresting journey.

I didn't see much of Gujarat's main city, as we had a four-hour wait in the station, but it did have one very important thing going for it: a Subway sandwich shop. I sat in the waiting room with all the bags while Mikey went to find lunch, supper and breakfast for us! It wasn't the most fruitful of searches as I don't think Indian Subways serve meat, certainly not beef, and they didn't have much bread, but I had a very good salad sandwich that was worth waiting for!

We sat in the station for four hours and Mikey started reading the Dave Gorman book with the same reaction that I had. The train arrived and left on time, and because Ahmedabad was it's starting point the train was actually clean. I read for a bit and then went to sleep. The air was thick and heavy with the sounds and smells of snoring and flatulence. It wasn't a good night to be on an Indian train!