How to survive 25 hours on a train!

Trip Start Feb 27, 2006
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Trip End Mar 29, 2006


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Flag of India  ,
Friday, March 17, 2006

Of course the train was running a few hours late, so I sat around on the platform and answered questions posed to me in Indian English by a little 8 year old boy who attended English school. His parents apparently speak English to him - it's a kind of upper middle class snobbery to have children who speak English instead of Hindi. He was quite sweet though getting very excited at my answers and running over to his dad and saying 'Auntie says that she.....' - as far as little children are called anyone who is not direct family is either an Auntie or Uncle!

Finally the train drew into the station and there was a mass scramble for the unreserved seats and other people settled into their sleeper compartments. For this trip I had reserved an upper berth in the single carriage called AC2, which means around 50 berths in the carriage in blocks of four curtained off at the corridor. The benefit of AC2 is it is kept relatively clean, there is even a western toilet although the hole in the floor is a lot cleaner, hawkers and beggars are not allowed to enter and it's a little cooler (although AC3 is even cooler). You also get sheets, pillow and blanket - cleaner than any hotel room I've been in here! I was sharing with an old couple and a young guy moving to a new town for his job - none of them spoke much English. I settled down to a fairly comfortable night on the supposed Express which seemed to stop as much as it moved!

I was brought an omelette and bread for breakfast and spent the rest of the day reading, wandering along the platform at stops, watching videos and listening to music on my wonderful MP3 player (a lifesaver!), sitting at the open door of the train watching the lush countryside pass by - the windows in AC2 are tinted and can't be opened, so it can get a little stiffling. Eventually it was just me left in my cubicle and I started to get really bored - at least in sleeper class there's a lot of more interaction with people, even if there's no privacy. Having planned to get off at Bhubaneswar, the train was running so late that I decided to go straight to Puri and spend the night and day there relaxing by the seaside. Of course the ever so officious inspector realised this and filled out triplicate forms for excess fare and I elected to move down a class for the last few hours and went to keep the cockroaches company in AC3.

We pulled into Puri, 25 hours later! The cycle rickshaw and auto-rickshaw men fought over me on the platform and I took a rickety cycle rickshaw to a hotel in the 'backpacker' area of town parallel to the beach. The Ghandara had space in a nice clean room with a great shower (showers in India if you get one are just a shower attachment fixed in the middle of the bathroom and the water just drains away down a hole somewhere near the toilet!). I spent the night cursing the gecko in my room screeching away, the noisy fan and the intense heat!

The next morning I wandered down to one of Puri's lovely beaches to watch the fishermen and holidaymakers getting ready for their day on the water. The women plodded into the sea in full saris. It was already boiling hot at 8am, so I took refuge under a shady tree in a courtyard restaurant catering for western tourists, before braving a cycle rickshaw into the 'Indian' part of town where the market and the important Lord Jagganath temple (one of the major pilgrim sites of India) was situated. As it was not open to non-Hindus there was not a lot to see, so I hoofed it back to the tourist area and had a tasty fish thali, before indulging in a rough Indian facial, massage and of course the all important eyebrow threading. Dinner was freshly caught grilled tuna, mashed potato and boiled veg - not a spice in sight and oil free! Yum!

Just a little comment here on the Indian head wobble as I find I use it quite a lot when I'm here as it's infectious (often accompanied by a 'ha')....it can mean a number of things and if you ever call a call centre and it routes to India, when you are wondering why you haven't had a straight yes or no or answer to your question of clarification, it's because the person on the other end has probably just done a head wobble in answer!

Normally it means 'Yes' but could also mean:
* No
* I don't know
* I'm not sure or don't know but am too embarrassed to say I don't know
* Maybe
* I know but I'm not going to tell you
* I didn't understand a word of what you just said to me so I'll just agree with you!

The latter is probably what is meant if it's not a straight Yes as Indian's are quite a passive lot and don't want to be seen to be rocking the boat or letting you down in some way.
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