An American travel vlogger said he was taken ill with a severe respiratory infection following a 15-hour train ride in India.
Nick Maddock, a travel content creator who has 200,000 followers on Instagram, said he was hospitalised in Bhutan after travelling in a third-class AC compartment of an Indian Railways train. That’s the second-lowest class available on an Indian train, above only general Sleeper class carriages which have no air conditioning.
Mr Maddock said he travelled by train from the northern city of Varanasi to New Jalpaiguri in the east before arriving in the neighbouring country.
Sporting a hospital oxygen mask, Mr Maddock said his train ride “was one of the grossest things I have seen in my six years of traveling”.
“Listen, I love India. It has warm and generous people, endless scenic landscapes, and a rich and sacred history,” he said on social media. “I can acknowledge that while simultaneously saying my 15-hour train in 3rd class AC from Varanasi to New Jalpaiguiri was one of the grossest things I’ve seen in my 6 years of traveling. No higher class was available. It doesn’t have to be like that.
“Three days later in Bhutan I was diagnosed with a severe respiratory infection. I am doing better now but it’ll be a slow road to full recovery.”
In a video, Mr Maddock said it was the first time he had ended up in a foreign hospital in six years of travelling in over 120 countries.
“It came to a point three days ago, when I entered Bhutan, that I just collapsed. I was so fatigued that I could barely move, talk, or function,” he said.
He wasn’t entirely sure whether his illness had been caused by the 15-hour train journey or a week spent in Varanasi where he saw bodies openly cremated along the Ganges river, Mr Maddock said, but it definitely didn’t start in Bhutan.
“But either way these lungs are toast,” he said.
Mr Maddock did not share when he had undertaken the train journey or when he visited Varanasi, a Hindu holy city known for its cremation ghats and religious significance.
His video went viral in India, sparking mixed reactions, with many users disagreeing with the travel vlogger’s generalisation of hygiene standards in the country.
“The majority of the tourists go to the poorest and bad areas of all countries in Asia and then proclaim the entire country is like that. This is because these travellers are not financially able to go to well-to-do areas, then whining,” a user said.
Some users speculated that the respiratory illness might have been caused by Bhutan’s high altitude or the traveller’s low immunity rather than the train journey.
Several users, however, shared their own unpleasant experiences of travelling by Indian trains. “Last year, I had to take the train from Agra to Kolkata for a work trip,” one user wrote. “I took 2AC obviously, not sleeper, but guess what, almost got hospitalised the very next day after coming to Kolkata due to severe allergies and high fever. Even as an Indian it was too much for me. The trains unfortunately are that depressing.”
Sharing a similar experience as Mr Maddock, a French tourist recently warned fellow foreign travellers against undertaking long-distance train trips in India unless they were well-prepared or willing to splurge.
In a 43-minute video, YouTuber Victor Blaho said his 46-hour train journey through Mumbai, Varanasi, Agra, and New Delhi under a tight budget “broke me” and shared many challenges that he faced while travelling in various train classes.
