Movin'on ...and on...

Trip Start Sep 22, 2004
1
7
11
Trip End Dec 13, 2004


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of India  ,
Thursday, November 4, 2004

Getting around has sometimes proved a bit tricky without advance planning. Trouble is, it's hard to plan ahead when you don't know how long you'll want to stay in any given place. After staying a night in Margao in order to catch a 7am train to Hospet and Hampi, I duly arrived at the train station only to discover there is no Friday service (despite my research hinting otherwise) so stuck with all my baggage and not knowing quite what else to do I caught a bus back to Colva so I could regroup and work out plan B. Decided to return to my original plan and do an inland route to Hampi instead from Mumbai. This wasn't to be one of my greatest decisions as it turns out, for several reasons.

You see, you can't buy a ticket for travel on a train less than 24 hours in advance. All you can do is buy an unreserved "platform ticket" an hour before departure. I did this for the overnight train. Being unreserved, you can't select what class you want, so you are only guaranteed 2nd class (the worst class). In a best case scenario you can jump into the class you really wanted and find a spare seat, and wait for the conductor to come through and pay for an upgrade. If there's a seat, that is.

So it was, an hour or so into my journey in 3A, that I was told that there was no seat available, but "just stay there". Six hours into the journey, after I'd downed two Temazapams and was in deep snoozeland in my comfortable upper berth, I was rudely awakened by the conductor and an annoyed Indian man whose bed I was occupying. And so it was I was uncerimoniously kicked out from 3A and had to make my way down to 2nd.

2nd is not the most comfortable place to be on a 12 hour journey. Every last seat was taken, some guys had found a spot on the overhead baggage racks, whilst others were squeezed onto the remaining floor space. This was to be my fate for the next six hours. Squeezed into a space about 40cm square, with people climbing over me each time we reached a station, and with a rank smell emanating from the toilets wafting through each time someone opened the doors. Feeling very dirty and somewhat violated I eventually arrived back in Mumbai.

This time I stayed at the Sea Lord Hotel. This is immediately below the India Guest House, as mentioned in Shantaram. It was as I checked in here I met Julie, a 39yo fellow Sydneysider. She was part way through a round the world trip and I hit it off with her quite well so we spent a few days together.

We did a trip to Elephanta Island on the ferry, which was pleasant enough... although for me having already seen the much superior Ellora caves is was a bit of a let-down. We also visited Chowpatty Beach where the head and neck massage wallahs targetted us and wouldn't take no for an answer.

After a few days here it was again time to move on so I caught a train to Pune.
Print this entry