Cannon Ball Run

“Traveling across India by rail is likely to yield some of the most memorable moments of your trip.” This bit of insight from our Rough Guide to the sub-continent was replaying in my head causing me to laugh out loud garnering even more stares from the others packed in around us. Memorable. Yeah that's one way to put it. Of course all the signs were there that the proverbial smooth waters we sailed all the way from Kandy were leading us straight into a storm. It's been a while in between posts so I'll rewind the story a bit. It was January 14th in Kandy a few hours before we were meant to catch the overnight train to Colombo, when Gary and Claire informed us that that train was not running. Whoops. It would have reached the capitol with just enough time to take the 45 minute bus ride to the airport and still make our early AM flight. Now it wouldn't reach anywhere because it wasn't leaving from anywhere. Being a bit less budget oriented than Radka and I, Gary and Claire had gone ahead and hired a van and driver to deliver them straight out of the hills and onto the tarmac. “You can come with us if you like.” Nice one. This would be the first of many maneuvers by this dynamic duo that would make Radka's and my life infinitely more comfortable over the next few days. We first met them over pints of Lion on the porch of our guesthouse and we got on quite well. Gary's a bit of a mad genius whose ideas and innovations kept me enthralled all evening. Claire is real sweet heart who left her posh London upbringing to travel the world (and design bikinis). So... when they offered us a ride in the van we jumped on in. Fate had already put us on the same flight as them and I was curious where else it would take us. The three hour ride to the airport was amazingly smooth and even allowed for a bit of shut eye. The flight even left on time if I remember correctly. Claire (or Gary...I don't remember which) even rang a friend in Goa to relay train times out of Trivandrum to us. Of course, the most painless route out of Trivandrum and back to Goa required us to deboard, clear immigration, collect our baggage and catch a tuc tuc to the railway station in about half an hour. I was a bit dubious but Gary wasn't fazed. “I have a good feeling” he shouted from his place in the immigration line. I had pulled a Carl Lewis to be first in my queue only to have 5 Indians steam straight in front of me. The British left them with the word “queue” if not a respect for the concept. Claire shouted their mobile number in case we got separated and they took off for the train. We still needed to collect our baggage. Despite the best efforts of our tuc tuc driver who was intent on taking us to the wrong train station, we were on the platform 5 minutes before the train pulled out. And there was Gary standing beside his 2nd class A/C sleeper bogey having a smoke. “I told you I had a good feeling, didn't I Mate? Claire has some seats for us inside.” But our tickets are just for 2nd class unreserved. “No worries. The whole train is supposedly full but we'll sort it out.” OK. Within an hour we had befriended the Head Ticket Inspector (TT) and been invited into his cabin. It was one of the best nights sleep I've had the whole trip. We arrived in Goa just after 5 AM some 27 hours after leaving Kandy, Sri Lanka. A near impossible feat considering the distance traveled and the logistics involved. To celebrate Gary woke up his friends at Cafe del Mar who greeted us with smiles and cold beverages. It was still dark out. Having a few hours before we could check in anywhere we went back to the house Gary and Claire had rented for the season. It was there Gary would astound us yet again by whipping up a steak and eggs breakfast at sunrise. Radka said it was the third time she had ever had steak. A few hours later and we would be lounging on the beach again. The rest of the week was fairly relaxing and uneventful... exactly as we hoped it would be. Even the 12 hour train journey up to Bombay was quite pleasant...which worried me a bit. As an independent traveler, you take the rough with the smooth and as I said at the beginning, it was going too smooth. “Number 756.” Our ticket number was finally called after watching the numbers count up from 435. ”Yes...we'd like to purchase two 2nd class sleeper tickets on the Punjab Mail Express to Agra.” “Not possible”, we were told. All classes were sold out. We neglected to realize the next day was Republic Day, a state holiday and that it was also right in the middle of ”wedding season”, as we were told. Having had luck finding seats through the TT on our last two trips we decided to try to board the train anyways. Bad idea. Twenty five hours is a long time to be on any train without seats…on an Indian train it’s almost unfathomable. So, there we were crouched on the floor in between cars with the Sadhus and untouchables, next to the reeking bogs, bracing for a nightmare of a trip. And it actually wasn’t all that bad… until the Hindustan Army stormed the train at about 1A.M. I suppose they were actually just “boarding” the train as opposed to storming it but you could have fooled me. We rolled into a station and the normal rush of humanity began squeezing past us, jockeying for position near the doors and then, Boom! The door flew open and the shouting began. The jawans pushed everyone trying to get off out of the way and began tossing in their metal footlockers and a loudspeaker system they were carrying with them (I have no idea!). People were obviously pissed off and had definitely missed their stop, but there wasn’t much that could be done. Footlockers were now stacked to the ceiling throughout the car and the troops had piled themselves on top of them or were milling about the car. I thought well about telling them what I thought of their tactics, recalling a headline in the paper the day before, “Five Jawans Held in Train Deaths”. Apparently these soldiers had been arguing with civilians riding in their bogey. They claimed the whole car had been reserved for them and the civvies thought otherwise. At the next station 7 of them were pushed from the train into the path of an oncoming train. Assholes.We attempted to make the best of it, squeezing into a space on the floor in between bunks but waking everyone up in the process. Seeing two pathetic Westerners on the floor, trying to stay warm (north India has been hit be a massive cold front off the Himalayas) instead of the thieves or cretins they expected to see when they turned on the light drew more looks of pity than anger. After the sun came up, the family whose compartment we had invaded offered us one of their bunks for the remaining 7 hours. Thank God!
So here we are in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, except I’m writing this post instead of viewing the Taj because they have decided to close it on Fridays for no discernable reason. If we weren’t already used to the insanity of this country, it would be enough to drive you mad. As it is, all you can do is laugh.

Next stop: Jaipur, Rajastha