On way to Varanasi

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7 weeks to go in India and I'm still down in Tamil Nadu, having procrastinated on booking my train ticket to Varanasi and then not being able to get on a train for 10 days.

I caught a train to Chennai on 29 Jan. I would have thought I'd got used to the fact that normally in India the beginnings and ends of journeys (and often the middle) are full of drama, but I arrived hopefully on the platform anticipating it might be straightforward. The man at the food kiosk helpfully told me that my carriage, AS3 would be at the front of the train, and he pointed left down the platform. So it was a bit disoncerting that when the train arrived, it approached from that direction. Did he mean the back? Or did he mean the front, and I needed to be at the other end. And just to explain, Indian trains are about twice the length at least as English ones. I decided to wait where I was and look out for the carriage numbers. Second confusion. As some numbers are printed on the train, some are written in chalk, and some are completely unmarked. Couldn't see any sign of AS3 and there were only two carriages that hadn't passed me. Also AS1 and AS2 had passed long ago and though you can't expect things to be in order here, I was getting worried that AS3 didn't actually exist. After running backwards and forwards aimlessly for a while, I found a guard. 'Where is AS3?' I said. 'Front, madam, front', he said, pointing towards the back of the train. I found another guard. ' Where is AS3?' 'Front train madam,' he said, but this time actually pointing to the front. I ran as fast as I could, but then overheard an Indian family being told that AS3 was at the back of the train. Eventually light dawned as we were told that carriage AS3 wasn't actually on the train yet, but was about to be joined on. Now my ticket purchase made more sense: when I'd booked it, the ticket guy had told me there were no tickets left and then had said actually I could have one and had charged me 300 extra rupees because it was a 'plus' car...
Finally AS3 trundled along the track and was joined on, and we got on. I was on the upper bunk which is nice once you're up there but requires the agility of a monkey to get up there, though all Indians, from age 2 to 85, it seems, manage this with no problem at all, which is probably why the entire carriage was staring at me with slight amusement as I desperately clung on to whatever I could to hoist myself up there. Luckily I had a little bottle of rum with me which, simultaneously managing to disrespect several codes of moral behaviour in India, I'd hidden inside my salwaar kameez scarf so this helped oil the wheels of the journey. Reasonably uneventful night bar the cocophany of snores and mucus-clearing around me; and we pulled in to Chennai station at 5.30am. I asked the information office where the prepaid rickshaw stand was and they pointed me in the direction of it, then a rickshaw driver came along and told me he'd take me to the prepaid stand. This is where you get a fixed, fair price for the rickshaw rather than hailing a rickshaw (or rather them hailing you) and going through the 10 minute haggling process. But when we approached the rickshaw stand, he said ' no the prepaid stand is shut. I take you.' Cunning ploy. I looked at the kiosk however and it did look shut, and it was 5.30am so I had to agree for him to take me, and work out a price. Lonely Planet (which I have unfortunately become a bit institutionalised by) had warned me not to pay more than 25 rupees to go to where I was going. He suggested 150, telling me it was 'nighttime'. Eventually I got him down to 70 and was too tired to argue further. (more on this issue later) Then the rickshaw wouldn't actually start, and he began to get out and push it instead. When I suggested maybe I would find another rickshaw he protested, 'no, madam, I start it, don't worry.'
He did eventually manage to get it going, fortunately just in time to be able to pull out on to the main road directly in front of a huge truck. However, we got to my guest house in one piece, and I managed to get a room for the night.
Arriving so early in the morning, I saw the Chennai that disappears a few hours into the day: the streets around where I was staying were full of people sleeping; unusually I felt moved to go and give them some rupees, or bring them some chai. I say unusually because I have to say that (not being proud of this) I have often found myself pushing these sights away from my mind, since being here. There is so much of it all the time; I don't know whether it's too overwhelming to take in, or whether I harden myself to it, or I just don't want to know, but I have not had the responses to this poverty and horror, that I was expecting to have or at least not to the extent that I thought I would. It's kind of an uncomfortable thing to confront in myself. Maybe seeing these people sleeping changed my response for that time, I guess people look more vulnerable.

Later on I went around to the Maharaja restaurant for some breakfast, and got talking to a nice guy called Nicky from London. We spent a couple of hours together then arranged to meet later on, and I decided to get a rickshaw to the AVC Film Studios in Chennai, where you can often watch filming taking place. When I got there, I couldn't see any signs of filming or anyone, and eventually saw a guard who looked at me walking towards the studio door and said sternly to me, 'no shooting!' I looked down at myself thinking, do I look like I have a gun with me? then realised he meant there was no shooting in the studio today: it was a festival day and so the studio was closed. I should have expected this; it's unusual to arrive anywhere on a day that isn't a festival day in India. However the guard did instead, once finding out that I was English: ' coming from, Madam?', begin to list all the famous English people he knew, starting with 'donna ber' . 'donna ber?' I echoed back. 'yes yes, donna ber - chief! England chief.' After I ascertained that he actually meant Tony Blair, he gleefully continued to name Charles, Philip, Diana, Elizabeth, and of course, David Beckham.

In the evening I met up again with Nicky and we decided to go and see a Bollywood movie, which I could actually follow quite easily this time, despite the fact we missed the first half hour and I still don't speak any Tamil. Having seen two or three now, I see that the stories can all loosely be summed up as follows: boy meets girl, both from different backgrounds, girl's family disapproves, both families fight over the relationship, eventually the relationship goes ahead (precipitating long bollywood song/dance/romantic routine); boy and girl madly in love, girl has accident, boy tries to save her. Any other sub plot that might pass you by is inconsequential to the storyline.
The next day I went down to Mamallapuram, which is a little coastal village about an hour and a half south of Chennai. Spent a nice couple of days there, it was good to get somewhere quietish after the buzz of the last few weeks, and on the first night I ended up eating dinner with a nice Australian woman I met in Moonrakers restaurant, then after she left had some drinks with a couple of guys in there, and we went down to the beach till about 4am which was lovely - and actually good that I couldn't see what the beach looked like because of the dark, as when I went down there again the next afternoon all I could see was sewage and piles of rubbish....
I went to visit an orphanage one day (there are a few in the area) which upset me a bit. Although the children seemed bright and happy, which is of course the important thing, I couldn't believe the conditions they were living in: 25 to a room, and sleeping on straw mats with really old dirty looking bedding. Although when I thought about it later, it's probably true that most Indian children, whether in families or orphanages, probably have similar living conditions; still, somehow it feels worse when these children don't have parents.
I left for Pondicherry a few days later, with a girl called Laura from Canada. Was really looking forward to going there mainly because you can get croissants, french bread and proper cheese, so was disappointed not to manage to seek much of this out while I was there, and also I just didn't like it much - found myself in a really irritable mood the whole time I was there which could have been me but there was something about the vibe too - well, people say different things about it, some love it there, I didn't. I also got shouted at by the man in the internet cafe, just because I asked him to turn on the printer so I could print my train ticket out; having spent about 2 hours on this website getting up to a certain point with booking and then the screen saying 'sorry, there is a communication error' (though they did manage to 'communicate' enough to take two lots of payment for the same ticket...) I finally got to book it and was anxious to print out the ticket because the power fails so often here. He was busy sending an email and when I asked again a few minutes later a volcano erupted. This did not add to my list of positives about Pondicherry.
I ended up going back to Mamallapuram as I then had this time to kill and not really long enough to go anywhere far that I really wanted to go; I'd met a few people there and thought maybe I'd spend some more time at the orphanage. In the event I feel like I've just drifted around a bit this week, but I guess there are times like this sometimes; but am a bit annoyed with myself as it's eaten into my time in Northern India. Still, I'm sure it'll all be ok. Couple of unpleasantnesses this week too�) on going to get two of my kameez-type dresses altered (they've stretched to being too revealing at the cleavage - why do they make stuff in India that have plunging necklines or become like that when you can't wear them anywhere? -or maybe this is just a male plot here... anyway, back to the tale, I got groped by the tailor who insisted he was just trying to 'mark the fabric' where I wanted the extra material. (2) getting myself into a bit of a tricky situation with a guy I met here, which is partly my fault, as he likes me and I just really wanted company as friends, and didn't make myself clear enough at the start, now he won't give up and is phoning me every few hours and I'm having to avoid all the places he goes in. (3) got my first proper all out Indian tummy bug; briefly thought I was dying of malaria and then dysentery but fortunately after 36 hours of hell, it seems to be passing. And so nice - a lovely girl called Aisling who I had met in the internet cafe just a few hours before, really looked after me. I had dragged myself out to the cafe that evening where we'd arranged to meet for dinner, to say I was ill, and for the next 24 hours she kept checking on me and bringing me supplies and rehydration salts. We managed to meet up for 'dinner' (not much for me) last night which was lovely - she's so nice and I was so grateful to her for being so kind.
I met a really nice Canadian couple, Michelle and Nolan, in Pondicherry and then they turned up here. Bumped into them again today so am meeting them later on; and then I plan to head off early to Chennai tomorrow as my mp3 player has chosen now, just before a 2 day train journey, to break, and I want to try and find an electrical shop that might fix it.
So I head up to Varanasi tomorrow, arriving Wednesday. I can't believe I have actually CHOSEN out of the Lonely Planet, a place to stay which is described as 'run down, with squat toilets'.... my initial criteria seems to be eroding day by day and I'm not sure if this is a good or bad sign...? But the man on the phone seemed nice and they're picking me up from the station because Varanasi's a particularly bad place for heavy rickshaw-driver touting.
Incidentally, my lovely friend Liz asked me what a 3a/c sleeper was - not sure if anyone else is interested but thought I'd quickly run through the different classes of seats you get on long train journeys:
First class a/c (air-con): don't know, never travelled on it -
2a/c: two tiered bunks in an open carriage, you get a curtain to section off your bunk, and food and drink is included in your ticket price. Toilet is reasonably clean. Guards tell you when to lie down and sleep and when to get up. Regular delivery of chai.
3a/c: 3 tiered bunks in an open carriage, no curtains, no food or drink, sporadic chai man passing through, but don't count on it. ok toilets.
Sleeper class: 3 tiered bunks, no air con, no cleaners presumably cleaning the carriage or the toilets, and probable double booking of your bunk. However, open grilled windows mean food is widely available from chai and food wallahs (people/sellers) coming up to the windows at the stations to sell you stuff - unlike 3a/c where you get nothing because you've paid more for air con and sealed windows but not enough to get free food like 2a/c. ???
Chair class: overcrowded plastic seats or maybe no seat at all and you don't get to lie down. But you get the chai wallahs as above - if you can reach them
2nd class: Can you believe none of those other classes qualified as 2nd class till now??!! 2nd class get slatted wooden seats or again, no seat at all, and the chai wallahs.

PS Monday - So am at Chennai station just waiting to catch my train. I left Mamallapuram this morning, saying goodbye to a family I'd befriended, who live on the street there, who kind of got under my skin; Priya, and her young lovely brother, Bhagras. Didn't manage to find anyone to fix my Mp3 player but had a nice time wandering around the Spencer Plaza shopping mall in Chennai - I was in a CD shop, almost thinking I was in England till I turned a corner and two men in lungis passed me.... (these are like sarongs but simpler, common male attire specially in S India). Such a mix of a place...
So till next time! Was going to talk about the haggling issue but no time now, but will soon...

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Comments

[JonathanCampion]

Thanks.
Hi Debbie, Your India blogs are great - I really enjoy the detail you put into your writing! J