The Experience of Travel in India

I don’t consider myself to be a princess, but at times I do feel a longing for comfort during the travel across India. The photo on the right was taken at our Hotel in Varanasi; this sign was put up to remind the tourists to keep the destructive monkeys out, not quite a royal palace for a princess.

I always find the auto rides to be interesting, if not amusing. The drivers weave and wind through traffic at full speed then dodge or brake when an oncoming auto, bike or a bigger vehicle like a car or truck looms ahead.  Of course, all of this happens with constant honking.  Many things here are created with a reverse logic from North America… our joke is that the horn works the same way.  It’s constantly ‘on’, unless you press the horn for silence.

I winced more than once as I thought for sure we were going to take out a scooter or cyclist, but at the very last second the auto driver stops or finds a creative way around them.  More likely though, they just get out of the way. It’s survival of the fittest here and there is a definite hierarchy of animals of the vehicular variety; if you are bigger, you win. Period.

On foot, since we have acclimatised to the culture and speed of the transportation system here, we look less like Bambi caught in the headlights and more like the the videogame Frogger.  So far, we haven’t lost any lives yet, especially since we only have one!  (Hindus would believe otherwise.)

Did you know…

An estimated 18 to 20 million people travel by train in India every day Indian Railways is the largest utility employer on Earth, with roughly 1.5 million workers. There are around 6900 train stations scattered across the country, making the Indian railway system, the third largest after China and Russia.

The trains are a different animal altogether. Up until now, we have had only minor stress getting a spot on the train.  It seems like we were always preoccupied with how we’re going to get away from places, rather than spending our energy planning our upcoming visits.  Leaving Varanasi was a new experience for us.  For the first time, we could not book confirmed seats on the train and we had to settle for “waitlisted” tickets.  We had a good chance sitting at spots #2 & 3 at first, then later we bumped up to spots 1 & 2. 

The man at the foreigner booking centre created a false sense of security the day prior that we had a very good chance of getting our first class seats.  He instructed us to show up the next day at a certain time when the train’s booking schedule was finalized to see our status.  He also told us that “for sure” we would get spots on the much less desirable sleeper class. Ultimately we got neither of those scenarios.

We had to scramble for a place, hoping that last minute cancellations would save the day.  Adding to the situation, I felt miserable with a bad headache, made worse after I ate train station food.  After David found some medication for me, I promptly relieved myself of the toxic train station food and started to feel better, but very weak. I wasn’t feeling up to fighting the masses for a spot on the train and I was very thankful that David could take care of it all.

There was one shining light in all of this chaos - a wonderfully patient man, Mr. Umashankar, who works for UP (Uttar Pradesh) Tourism in a small office in the train station. Mr. U is so awesome that he has earned a special mention in Lonely Planet.

His impartial advice was a god-send with all the confusion around us.  With his colleagues, they made sure that all the Bambi tourists found their way to their train unscathed.  Varanasi junction station is not well-organized. With more than seven platforms for train stops, you cannot know more than 10-15 minutes in advance which platform you will need to go to as they juggle the arrivals based on availability, especially when trains are delayed, which is not always displayed on the big digital jumbo screen. Having Mr. U around made it much easier to make our way out of town.

At the moment of writing this post, we’re hour 16 into a train ride to Kolkotta (previously named Calcutta) on a third class train.  It’s riddled with cockroaches (thankfully small ones) and it has a permanent aura of old curry. I’m no longer sure if the smell belongs to the train or to us anymore - there are limited facilities to clean up, and you don’t want to stay there longer than you have to. 

We couldn’t get any seats other than Upper berth, which kids would love because it’s like climbing into a bunkbed (with two beds below you). For adults, however, it’s not as much fun (as illustrated by David giving the Italian greeting, often mistaken by Indians as the sign for food.)  As soon as we could see free space down below, we moved ourselves to be more comfortable for the remaining 10-12 hours of train travel.

By the way, for this train, these were the best seats in the house.