The slow train sees what the plane misses — backwaters, ghats, and a hundred small stations between here and the sea.
I could have flown in two hours. Instead I took forty by train down the Konkan coast, and I would do it again without hesitation. The slow way sees what the fast way skips.
A hundred stations
Between here and the sea there are backwaters, ghats, and small stations where the train pauses just long enough to buy chai through the window. None of it is a destination. All of it is the trip.
The window of a slow train is the cheapest, best viewfinder there is.
I shot most of this from a doorway with the wind in my face — a wide lens, a fast shutter, and a willingness to throw away ninety frames for the one where the light, the landscape and the timing agreed.
Travel that takes time gives you something back: the gradual change of a coastline, the way the air smells different two states south. You can't get that at altitude in an aisle seat.
