Weekend trip to Vijayawada

My ex-colleague Chakravarthi aka Chax got married in Vijayawada on Saturday (23rd). Jayashree and myself had planned to attend the function long back. But due to reasons unknown to both of us, we didn't buy tickets early. We wanted to leave Friday night but we got tickets only in "Jan Shatapdi" express on Saturday morning, which was ok because the reception was only in the evening.

Now, I did not expect "Jan Shatapdi" to be of the same standards as other Shatapdi express trains which are completely air-conditioned. To my surprise, "Jan Shatapdi" was just like other Shatapdi trains without A/C. It was clean, with good lighting, comfortable seats and a food tray at the rear of the seat. We did enjoy the journey.

I had a presumption that Andhra in general was unclean. I don't know why I had this feeling. But I stand corrected now. And how? As the train entered Andhra, we could see that all stations were clean and the platforms were covered with tiles. The tracks were also clean. Have you ever seen that at Chennai Central? I haven't. The city of Vijayawada was also clean in general albeit you can attribute part of it to the heavy rains.

Oh yeah, how did I forget this?. The Vijayawada railway station has an escalator (functioning). I was impressed.

The best part was that I saw people taking the pain to walk up to the bin to throw the paper cups, instead of just using the railway track as the perennial waste-bin as it happens in Chennai. If only people realise. Hmmm.