Train across India
Trip Start
Feb 07, 2008
1
6
77
Trip End
May 06, 2008
Kolkata (Calcutta), India
Sunday, February 10, 2008
I sat in the Everest Cafe drinking hot chai masala and reading a borrowed book until a French girl sat next to me and we got talking. She was also on the overnight train to Kolkata. Her name is Alexandra and though we weren't in the same carriage we arranged to meet by the pre-paid taxi booth at Howrah and share a ride to Sudder St.
Then we trotted around Paharganj for a while - confusing the hell out of a guy who insisted on talking to me every time I passed him on Friday. He was harmless enough, but kept saying, "I'm not trying to hassle you!" over and over until I nearly said something about the lady protesting too much. I repeatedly told him I'd be leaving Delhi the next day, which wasn't a lie, so of course when he saw me I could see the confusion cross his face from a distance. Anyway, back to yesterday (Saturday) with Alex: she needed to pick up her repaired clothes and drop an extra bag off in storage for 10 days, and we both needed to use the internet. The rest of the day was spent snoozing and basking in the sun on a roof-top bar with a piece of chocolate cake and a lemon soda.
The train was on time, so we only needed to wait for 40 mins or so on the platform. We'd put our bags down in an area of available dry floorspace, but we soon noticed it was near to a locked door with a gap at the bottom from where a rat would sporadically scurry. They mostly ran left, toward another passenger's mountain of baggage, but I had to stand on "rat watch" to discourage the odd one heading our way. At one point there was a great deal of squeaking behind the door - maybe a domestic or something.
Then we headed our separate ways to our carriages, where I promptly put my bags on the wrong berth. Correctly re-located, I made the bed (I'd requested an upper berth) and chained my bags up top. My fellow-bunkee was a nice man from Bangalore who told me that the north was dirty and dangerous and the south was nice and educated. He must have felt it was Very Important that I remember this, for he told me another 5 times in the following 18 hours. Considering I was only conscious for 7 of those hours...
We set off - it was so good to be moving on - and I was a little disappointed by the relative lack of defecating people by the tracks. Maybe it's a morning ablutions thing and not done at 5pm so much?
The warmth and the rocking of the train made me sleepy, so by 8 I was in bed, like the crazy westerner I am. I was woken for dinner (finished off with ice cream, yey!) but then I didn't get up until 7am. I'm not sure why I'm so tired but it definitely beats the insomnia I had last time I was in India. I did wake at about 2am, and then every half hour after that, but it wasn't unpleasant waking so I feel well rested now. I had another wacky dream - I was in a tent at one of those Ashton posse beach parties that I have never been to (wtf?) and when someone snored suddenly and loudly (in real life, on the train) and I woke up and said, "Hannah?" to the sleeping carriage. Heh. Does Hannah snore?
7am saw us passing through Jharkhand (apparently in the grips of bird flu, which was why there was no non-veg option on the train) a state created in 2000 out of the southern part of Bihar state. Bihar is still the poorest region of India but Jharkhand has improved since its creation.
The problem with the overnight train was that I only had a few hours of daylight to see the country. On the other hand, once you've seen flat plains of paddy fields and the occasional village, you've seen basically the whole route. It's no surprise this whole place floods so badly during the monsoon - the villages are built on patches of earth only a foot or so higher than the flooded paddy fields around them.
The Man from Bangalore and I sat quietly as we rolled towards Kolkata. He attempted to start up again (this time about how dirty Kolkata is and how I shouldn't eat anything if I could possibly help it) but I made a noise of mild disinterest and he stopped. We both giggled when we witnessed a couple fighting on the raised path beside the tracks. They were walking along when suddenly the woman turned on the man and started whapping him.
At Howrah I got tutted at by a lady I nearly decapitated when I pulled my bag down from above. In fairness, if she'd just given me a bit of space - it was obvious what I was doing...
Then into the mayhem of the station. Plenty of porters with trolleys and the calls of, "Chalo, chalo, chalo!" - 'lets go, lets go, lets go' (or just 'move' I suspect).
Turns out there are two pre-paid taxi booths, so for a while Alex and I were each stood at one, looking for the other. Then we stood in line waiting to be served while every moronic taxi driver in the area stood around us and wasted their breath. An official had already told us that a taxi to Sudder St is 65 rupees, and a big notice board has all the common destinations and their fares up too, so why they thought we'd be stupid enough to believe them when they claimed 65 rps was per-person, not the whole cab, I don't know.
We found a hotel after perusing a few with stained beds. It's a little more than Alex is willing to pay, but I'm not sure we're going to find one cheaper that is also clean enough. We'll see. She is staying for 5 days or so, checking out the Mother Theresa thing, since she was working with a sister organisation in Delhi.
Then we showered (mmm clean) and ate (I confess, it was pizza) before going our separate ways. She wanted to find a cheaper place for the days to come and then at 3 she was meeting some volunteers. I got on the metro and saw if I could walk to the Bangladesh Consulate. Turns out you can, though it's a 25 min walk. I didn't expect it to be open with it being Sunday and all, but I wanted to get info and also find out how long it took to get there. The man on the answering side of the buzzer told me to come back tomorrow at 10.30 with various things, and that it would be ready the day after that. Not too bad, but I feel a day has been wasted for not getting the earlier train. Never mind.
So, tomorrow I will sit and wait again. I want to go to the flower market, apparently it's beautiful and most likely more fragrant than most of the city. It's much warmer here, at least 10C more, which makes things much more comfortable.
I met up with Alexandra in our room and we decided to move tomorrow morning, before I go to the Consulate. She used the internet and I wandered, bumping into a guy from Germany with Caribbean heritage, called Sanaka. He's a lively interesting person, so he ate and I sat with him until Alex was finished, and then we ate and he sat. Poor Alex had a bad experience with a bad samosa, so now she feels ill even looking at Indian food. I had a thali, which was yum, but it's just as well we aren't travelling together cos the sharing food thing would be a problem.
I arranged to meet Sanaka at 9 tomorrow since we are both taking the metro south. Then bed, which was a little uncomfortable since the fan makes it too cold and far too noisy (resulting in a headache in the night) but it's too claustrophobic without some air movement.
