The rhythm of the rails is all I feel

This is from day three of my trip to Kenya. You may want to start at the beginning.

I've only taken an overnight train once before, in Thailand, and it was a generally good experience, so I thought I'd try it in Kenya. (Interestingly, that was two years ago to the day.) On the advice of Lonely Planet, I booked ahead -- specifically, I asked a company called East Africa Shuttles to book a first class ticket for me (and sent them some money via Western Union) and gave them my first name.

The morning of the train ride, after my safari, I stopped in at the train station to pick up my ticket and the train station had no idea who I was. Concerned, I called the guy from East Africa Shuttles and he explained that he hadn't bought it yet. Fortunately, there was still room on the train. I reserved a ticket (under my last name) and told them that the guy would come pay for it.

I came back to the station around 5:30pm just to make sure, and yep, he had stopped by and paid for the ticket. They started handing out boarding passes just after 6pm. Each person received a ticket, a boarding pass, and a card entitling them to dinner at a certain time -- all of them were first seating, at 7:15pm. I asked for second seating and was told to ask the steward.

At check-in, I was given two boarding passes -- one for my first name and one for my last name. I was going to argue, but then I remembered that there were two beds in each compartment. I had just been handed a private room. Sweet.

I waited on the platform for a while, the train was a bit late. Meanwhile, I did as the local kids did -- walked out onto the tracks -- although I did it for the photos, they did it to drink from the water tap between the tracks.

Third class boards at the front, and at that end of the platform was a large crowd of Kenyans. I understand that third class is just seats, no beds. I'm not sure what second class is like, I would guess four beds in each cabin but with no doors between cabins (like in Thailand). I was in first class at the back of the train with lots of other mzungus.

Finally the train pulled in and we got on board (that's it on the right). I met my neighbors, nice people, and examined the room. The sleeping cars had narrow hallways on one side and fairly spacious sleeping rooms on the other. My room was pretty fancy as far as trains go. Lots of small unexpected amenities, though, like a private sink with an outlet for an electric razor. The door locked, which was nice. But there were lots of weird little things, like broken buttons and switches -- it clearly hadn't been well-maintained

That's my cabin in the picture. Once the train started moving, a staff member came by and took one of my tickets, saying it entitled me to bedding. Then the steward came by and introduced himself and at my request traded me for a seating card entitling me to sit at second dinner (8:45pm). My thought was to try to see the countryside while it was light out. There was a sign over every window saying it was dangerous to lean out the window, but my neighbors and I spent most of our waking time leaning out the windows with no trouble (well, I was almost hit by an acacia tree once, but no actual trouble).

At about 7:30, a crewmember walked through the train banging on a small xylophone-like thing to announce first dinner. Second dinner was around nine, and the xylophone guy came back. He warned me to take all of my valuables to the dining car. While we were out, a guy came by and made our beds. The food wasn't stellar but considering it was train food, I wasn't disappointed. We ate off of EAR (East Africa Railroad) china, which must be years old by now. This photo was taken out the window, that's another train going by. When we got back, an employee warned us to keep our windows locked while we slept. I slept reasonably well considering I was on a train.

I awoke just before sunrise, around 5:45, which was good because we had entered Tsavo National Park at 5am and I wanted to watch for animals. Sure enough, I was just getting to the window when we passed a herd of wild buffalo. The only other wild animals I saw were antelope, though we passed many herds of cattle and sheep and goats. Apparently sometimes you see elephants and giraffes.

The train runs every day and more or less on a schedule, so children along the route know when to stand there to watch the train go by. Lots of kids stand there and wave, although more or less half of them are begging for money. One of them threw a rock at a friend of mine.

The train made a lot of stops, but we were more or less unaware of them at the back of the train. We'd look down the train and see lots of people in third class getting on and off, but they didn't even announce the stops for us.

As we pulled into Mombasa, we got a bit of a view of the city. It was a lot smaller and more spread out than I had pictured, though I admit I had no basis for thinking there would be skyscrapers. We arrived at 11:30am, an hour and a half late, for a total travel time of sixteen hours. A quick negotiation with a taxi driver and we were on the way to a hotel.

You might want to read about my time in Mombasa.