IRCTC is the renowned online website to book Indian Railway tickets, I have used their website and booked those tickets.

Travel date arrived, train was scheduled at evening 8 PM. Only, in that morning, I have informed my wife, be ready we are travelling to Kodaikanal(Hill destination).

At 7 PM, we arrived at the railway station and we were waiting for the train to arrive. At 7.30 PM the train arrived and boarding of passengers began. Me and my wife reached to the coach in which we were suppose to board.

I took my ticket and checked the seat numbers and went to check the list of passengers sheet, which is normally affixed to the train coach.

I was reading from top to bottom, again bottom to top..but ours names were missing. So, i took out the ticket again, cross verified the train number and coach and seats…all were fine.. date was fine….but there came the glitch.

I was wondering..how come there is no name. Again I re-checked the ticket, then only I was shocked to observe that my ticket was booked to next month same date. Surprise, became a devastation. My wife, may have thought…how she tied knot to an idiot!

The time was 7.40 PM. I said to my wife, just hold on.. i will be here in 5 minutes..

I ran upto the station master to find, if there are any current reservation available, but the station master and the on duty Station Ticket Examiner said nothing, this is weekend. Immediately, I went to the ticket counter and purchased two unreserved tickets, which allows to board only in general compartment that allows unreserved ticket holders. By 7.55 PM, I am back to wife, and said let us board the train.

We ran upto the unreserved compartment, stunned to see no space even to stand. It was house full.. internally I decided, we are not suppose to board this.

So, I said to my wife, come let us go and board the non A/C reservation compartment, in which unreserved ticket holders are not allowed/supposed to travel. So we boarded the Reservation compartment and temporarily just sat down in vacant seats..

Meanwhile, I went to meet the Train Ticket Examiner. Normally, Indian trains have 22 coaches in which atleast 6 to 7 TTE, who cover 2 or 3 compartments each.

I went and met all of them and explained that, I have unreserved ticket and I am looking for two berth seats.. money is not a matter.. All of them said, no seats are empty.. nothing is available, because all seats are full and get down at the next station.

So, I had only two options…get down and return back home…or try once again.. So, I have decided to reach the First Class Air Conditioned coaches, which are very few and are attached near to the engine of the train.

I met and talked to the AC technician who was on duty, told him, I want to check with the TTE, if there are any seat available in the First AC. He said, let me talk to TTE and find out.

The TTE asked to wait for sometime..later came up and said, there is only one sleeper berth is available.. I accepted and paid the money to convert my unreserved ticket to AC ticket for both. But, only one berth.

At last, I ran back to my wife… luck baby.. we have got one sleeper berth..let us go.

By the time it was around 10 PM.

Sleeper seat was an upper birth, I helped my wife to claim up to the berth..and myself boarded to same berth.

Sleeper birth is just around 2 feet width by 6 feet length. Because, it was an AC coach, coach attender gave a nice woolen bed-sheet.

By 11, my honeymoon started, hot honeymoon couple in single berth… ha ha… show just began in the dark coach, inside the dark woolen.

Do you think, we have slept… no :).. at around 4.30 AM, train reached my destination….

From there we had to take a bus to reach tourist destination, reached Kodaikanal at 9 ….This is a place called queen of hills. Hill station with temperature of 10 degrees, beautiful place for Honeymoon.

Of course, i had to recheck to my return ticket…it was absolutely fine…

The actual problem was my upward journey was for 28th and return journey was around 2nd .. there came the confusion of month selection, which went unnoticed in the website booking, until we reached the coach..

Well, whenever, I think of honeymoon…or someone talk about honeymoon…I and my wife smile… 🙂 honeymoon with a rare opportunity. 🙂

If you are looking forward, dont check your month on the ticket…