Detour to Sawai Madhopur

Although I've loved all our Indian train journeys so far, they were all 2nd class air-conditioned, whereas all we could get for this trip was 'Sleeper' class which is more crowded and has no air-conditioning (this route North of Goa is one of the busiest in India). In fact I was quite looking forward to a more 'real' Indian train experience, as far more local people travel 'Sleeper' class than the a/c classes.

And it turned out to be a great trip. One advantage of sleeper-class is that there is no glass in the windows - the a/c classes, of course, must have windows, but they are heavily tinted, which reduces the visibility of the passing landscapes. At this time of year the weather is still very pleasant and so a/c isn't really necessary, and so the whole trip during the day was fine. I didn't really notice the extra people in the carriage either, so all-in-all I reckon sleeper-class was a great choice (and about a third of the price).

After a pretty good sleep (you don't get bedding including and I didn't really wrap up properly), we had the whole morning to travel up to Jaipur. On the way I was reading the guidebook when I realised that the train was most probably going to pass by a town next to Ranthambore National Park. This was a place I wanted to visit, but hadn't realised the train would pass through here on the way to Jaipur. I quickly made up my mind to hop off the train at Sawai Mahopur and check out the nearby park.