RG and Lakshmi came with their kids at around 7.15 PM and picked me up. It was interesting to note that their driver didn't know the route from my house to the Egmore station. Neither did both of them for that matter.
So, it was left to Marco Jawahar Polo to guide us to the station. I had no qualms in getting the group till the Mount Road Darga. But from there, I wasn't too sure about the route to take, coz I havent really gone much to that station or that pin code itself for that matter.
I trusted the mental images I had of that area and thankfully, not much of the slum, and the cooum had changed. So we reached the station with some 30 minutes to spare. Sathya too reached a few minutes before we did.
Once we reached the platform, we moved to our coach and found that all of us were given different seats. What I meant of course, is that we weren't in the same bay in the coach. I was in the first bay, RG and Lakshmi in the second and Sathya was actually in the next coach.
Since the train was full, we couldn't get Sathya into this coach itself. But with a lone traveller in the second bay consenting, I was able to swap seats with him and become part of the second bay itself.
So in effect, we had two side berths and one upper berth. After much deliberation, I was allocated the side upper one. Despite the best efforts of Indian Railways' exemplary design that doesn't let any air reach the upper berth (and a bold and loud crying attempt by the baby in our group), I managed to sleep between 11.30 PM and 7.30 AM.
I woke up to find the coach quite deserted. That's when I was informed that 90% of the crowd had gotten down at Madurai and we were practically the only ones left out in the coach.
The Nellai Express sauntered on for the last one hour and we finally reached "Thirunaveli" (I noticed a few years back that the locals don't say Thirunelveli, they only say Thirunaveli) at 8.45 AM.
We were welcomed there by Rajesh's brother, who arranged a Qualis for us and dropped us off at the Hotel near the station. Since Rajesh had invited quite a few friends, the Hotel staff were slightly behind in handling the request. So, while RG and Lakshmi got their room, Sathya and I were tagged with a party of 3 others. We were shown to the King's Suite of the Hotel. It was a very spacious room, with a small living area with sofa set et al, a good sized bedroom with a big double bed and a big single bed. There was also a separate dressing area and a cool bathroom with bathtub!
Since Sathya had planned to take his bath at the Falls we were going to visit, the opportunity of having the bath first was available in front of me and off I went. After an uneventful completion of the morning duties, I emerged a much better person on the outside.
Then it was breakfast time.
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