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Published: October 18th 2010
I'd been advised to set off early for Sealdah Railway Station as traffic was likely to gridlock in the evening, and the normally 20 minute journey could take two hours. My train was at 10:05 pm on the Darjeeling Mail, and to be on the safe side I flagged down a taxi at about 4 pm, talked to the friendly driver who at the end of the journey told me this wasn't really his cab and there isn't much money in taxi driving etc, and arrived at the railway station at about half past.
Sealdah Station is massive from the outside and was all lit up for Durga Puja. It looked really strange and intimidating in the rapidly fading light. Matters weren't helped by the fact that when I was in the middle of paying the driver my car door opened. I looked round and saw what I can only describe as someone who looked like an elderly bearded mad priest or prophet. He didn't really say anything, and I wondered if he was a porter at first but he was clearly too old and fail to carry my backpack, so I guess without being cruel he was probably a beggar. I paid the driver and turned around and the man had vanished, which was a relief.
It was interesting to watch life go by in the five hours I spent at the station. Passengers rushing to jump on or off packed local trains, vendors selling chai and coffee, police walking around, and people arriving all dressed up and looking very smart in their traditional clothing for the festival. I moved up for an elderly lady to sit down, she thanked me and then started conversing with me in Hindi. She couldn't understand why I couldn't understand what she was saying and seemed to find it very odd. In the end she gave up and started talking to some local Kolkatans instead.
There were a lot of beggars at the station, and it's hard not to feel really sorry for them. Many are really old and/ or disabled. They clearly have no family to look after them, and they don't get any help from the government. They don't aggressively beg either (at least inside the station, though I saw a woman really pestering a group of travelers in Siliguri car park) so you tend to have more sympathy. You are advised not to give money as you can be quickly swamped if you give money to one person, and this sometimes goes to gang masters, especially where children are involved. You tend to feel extra guilty as a lot of Indians give them money. The way beggars ask for money is quite strange by western standards. They approach you holding out their hand, which is often full of coins they have previously been given. The Britain someone would take that money off you before long.
I also drew a lot of attention at the station. I didn't mind too much but people blatantly started at me when they walked past, I don't think they had seen a white person before. You can see how some people must feel in the UK, being gawped at by the locals for looking different.
The Darjeeling Mail started taking passengers on bored about half a hour before departure. This was just as well considering my inability to tell the difference between Platform 12 and Platform 12a. Imagine waiting waiting five hours for a train and still missing it? Traveling on the Mail was both an amazing and surreal experience. I shared a section with an Indian family of seven. There was the husband and wife, Grandma and Granddad, two girls, and another man who was probably the husband or wife's brother. Traveling with them was an eye opener. For a start they only seemed to have about four seats even though there was about seven of them, and they all squeezed onto my bench meaning there was about five people in three seats. They also pretty much squeezed their luggage into everyone else's storage space, but no one seemed to mind, and my backpack was already safely out of the way on the top bunk.
As soon as the train departed they broke out a semi feast from nowhere and tucked into their dinner. It smelled really nice and made me wish I'd brought some food of my own. When they have finished their food they decided it was bed time. This meant myself and the two men sat near me also had to co-operate and go to bed, but that was ok as it was about 11pm. I'd been wondering how the seats turned into bunks with some worry, but the man next to me was really helpful and showed me how to make the seats change into what was going to be my bed. Indians are apparently quite reserved about nudity and exposing skin, but the granddad was happily getting changed in front of me. Unfortunately for him, he was struggling with the getting his trousers off and was wading round in his underpants with his trousers round his ankles, nearly falling onto my knee on a few occasions!. He also found time to tell me off in Hindi for putting my bag in the wrong place. After cleaning their teeth, getting changed, and climbing in often back out again of various bunks they eventually settled down, bringing to an end my good couple of hours people of people watching.
One thing about staying in sleeper class - you ain't going to get much sleep. But that's ok because its really entertaining watching and listening to everything going on. Chai-wallers pass through every five minutes, along with the occasional musician and beggar. Every now and again the train would pass though an area where there were really odd, almost sinister chanting or music outside, which was made all the more mysterious by the fact that you can't see out of the window. I loved every minute of it.
Ten hours later the train pulled up at New Jalpaiguri Railway Station, and after getting lost a few times I found my way out to get a jeep to Darjeeling. Unfortunately the pre-paid booth was not taking bookings for Darjeeling, which meant paying three times the going rate. It was raining, and with the fixed price booth being out of order, meant the private jeep drivers were not going to be haggling with anyone. Still, for four pounds, the three hour drive to Darjeeling was well worth it. I shared a jeep with about nine ever changing locals (one of whom opened the car door, thrust his baby into a random lady's hands without saying a word, and then climbed up onto the roof to travel there) through tea plantations, along treacherous cliff top routes, where even the slightest mistake by the driver would have meant certain death. We drove up through the clouds and at one point, I was literally about ten meters away from a smallish almost cartoon size cloud, why was hovering over the hilltop to the side of the road. It was amazing.
I got dropped off at Darjeeling Railway station, and after getting lost, accidentally arrived outside my hotel.
I was in Darjeeling!
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Nosh
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I loved the bit about the grandad getting dressed infront of you!lol sounds so weird n interesting.really makes me want to go!(not the grandad bit lol)