day7

Day 7 : Don't you speak English?

We should have ordered that coffee for 6 a.m., because that's what the time is now, and we are both wide awake, with the daylight hurting my eyes as it comes streaming in through the thin curtains.
Nick has already been up a while, you should know why by now, so I won't go into further detail.

A quick look outside the door for the paper, which I find is already laying there. I then look to the left and see the room boy with the blank stare is ready and waiting to cater for our every need. We order the 6 a.m. pot of coffee! These room boys are psychic I'm sure, perhaps that's why he stares blankly, and maybe he was in a trance last night. And then I wonder if the other boy's thick glasses are some kind of special X Ray specs for looking into your mind?

When the room boy came back with the coffee he didn't hang about getting his question in, asking straight away if we would be leaving any of our shirts when we departed today, I didn't remember telling him we were leaving? I've really got to get myself a pair of them glasses!

Sitting on the balcony drinking coffee as the sun rises is quite a pleasant experience, especially this morning, as there are no clouds to spoil the views as it rises like a giant orange over the temple, and to supplement this great view we were treated to another one, the elephant arrived at bang on 6.30 for his breakfast.

We had our own breakfast in the hotel again this morning, eggs and toast I think it was today.
The rickshaw drivers were a little disappointed when we told them we were going to walk around town this morning, we had plenty of time to kill before our train journey that afternoon.

It's a pleasant morning with the sun not yet at it's hottest, we are both feeling comfortable walking around, me a little less than Nick who doesn't sweat half as much as me in the heat. Mind you, he probably has nothing left inside him to sweat out.

We walked for a good distance from the hotel, eventually finding ourselves in the Temple area where the procession we had seen the night before, is now doing the morning show. Everyone in the streets along the route stop doing whatever it is to stand and pray as it passes. We decide to follow the route and take some pictures of the procession animals and people lining the route along the way.

A news crew who are out filming the procession pick up on me taking photographs and turn the cameras on me, hardly a news worthy item I would have thought.
Even the police who are walking with the procession are smiling at me when they see me point a camera in their direction. It still makes me laugh when I think of all these people who want to be in a photograph that they will never see, unless of course they think I'm some kind of newsman, and they might just end up on the cover of Time Life, or some other large publication.

I was breaking into a sweat trying to get near the front of the procession in order that I could take pictures of the Elephant, but I couldn't find him. Perhaps he had an early lunch date at another hotel?

The procession finally wound it's way back to the Temple, where we stopped for a cold drink sitting on a shop step to watch the world go by, or should that be watching the world watching us as it went by?
Feeling confident that we now had the layout of the town, we continued to walk for a while, before finally admitting that we were lost!
The good thing is that you are never truly lost in a big place like this, as there are always loads of people willing to take you wherever you want to go. These people are usually rickshaw drivers, and today was no different from any other, so we just jumped into the first one to stop and asked to go to Town Hall Road.

Guess what happened next? �. Yes that's right!

As soon as we got out of the rickshaw the Tailor and Silver tout were there to greet us! How did they do this? It was as though they were tracking our every move.

We had a little laugh and joke with the pair of them, telling them we would pop back and see them that afternoon, just as soon as we had sent home some e-mails and had our lunch. They seemed quite happy with this arrangement and let us go without too much further hard sell, probably thinking they now had our mark and would sell us half of India later on.

Well, we had some bad news for them, we were not coming back here again, not today, not tomorrow, not ever!    Yeah, I know that you can never say never, and maybe we will go back one day, and if we do, I bet you a shit load of money they will be standing there smiling like demented Cheshire cats just as soon as we step out of the rickshaw, which will probably be driven by a young lad with a wagging head and big smile.

They were of course all nice people and great fun, and if ever I was to open a shop in India, these men would be the first people I would employ to bring in the customers.

With still a few hours to kill we walked back to the hotel from here, as this was the one part of town we had got to know really well. I lay on my bed watching the BBC world service news on television, and felt that I was at home when I saw the newsreader, he was the same one who does the local South East news. "What's the time Nick" I asked, knowing that it pissed him off, as he would now have to search through all the pockets on his combat style trousers until he found his pocket watch.

My watch was not working and Nick did not have a wristwatch, preferring instead to use a pocket watch, it was just a pity he had so many pockets to put it in. Nick seems to think I have an obsession about wanting to know what the time is every ten minutes! I wonder why that is?

Lunch was taken downstairs in the hotel restaurant, and again we were the only people in there so were guaranteed good service. We had another Thali, but I was not really into them and only picked at mine. Nick liked them a little more than I did, but then again he eats a lot of curries and such like at home.

Before we left we again sorted out some shirts for the room boys, then it was another rickshaw ride to the station for our two p.m. train to Trivandrum. The rickshaw driver was a fair bit older than most of those we had encountered so far, and he wanted to share all his years of wisdom with us on the way to the station, which was ok by me as I never understood a single word he said.

It's hard to hear anything the drivers say when going along with the engine screaming, and the open sides letting a full force gale whistle up. Oh yes the other thing is you actually have to be listening to him, and I wasn't, I was to busy making sure we were not being followed by the Silver Tout.

"Do you want to buy some good hashish" enquired the rickshaw driver when he dropped us at the station. "No thank you, we don't take drugs" I told him jokingly in a sternish voice.
"I'm very sorry" he said in a most apologetic way, and I think that he genuinely felt as though he had offended us.
We were not bothered as we were always being offered something by someone, but very rarely drugs from a rickshaw driver.

We still had over 45 minutes to wait for our train after finding the platform we needed to be on. The train was already there but we did not know it was ours as it had no destination boards on it as yet.
Also when you have pre booked seats a reservations man pastes a list on the appropriate carriage with your name and seat number on.

Nick went to get some supplies for the journey, fags and water! We would get anything else we needed from the station vendors when we stopped.

While he went searching for these items I stayed with the bags on the platform. I was watching the station porters unloading a train. You would never have known these young men worked on the railway as they were dressed in no distinguishing uniform, in fact they were dressed in very little at all. Most of the five or six that were working wore only a lungi and tatty vest.                                                     (Our First Class compartment)

They were moving the large crates and assorted cardboard boxes from one platform to another, but rather than use a barrow and wheel it across, they were carrying it on there backs over the ballast and across the tracks, and most were doing this barefoot. Although I did notice there were a couple of wimps amongst them who were wearing flip-flops!

According to which book you read about Indian Railways the figure for the amount of employees differs, it is estimated between one million and one million two hundred thousand people work for this railway company, making them the biggest single employer in the whole world. Can you imagine the logistics involved in the payroll alone.
It is also estimated that between ten and twelve million people travel on the Indian Rail network every single day, today's estimate from me made that figure twelve million and two!

Another interesting article I had read somewhere, was this story about a man who had been an engine driver for only eight years and already had twenty-five people commit suicide in front of his train! Assuming the rate stayed roughly the same, he could have well over one hundred incidents in a thirty-year career.

When Nick returned he confirmed that the train in the platform was indeed the one we were to catch, the lists had been posted on the reserved coaches, which naturally were at the completely opposite end to where we were now standing. Thirty-five minutes later we reached our coach, well maybe it wasn't that long, but it was a fair way as the train had at least 18 coaches.

The coach we were in looked no different to the rest of them, and certainly did not look like a first class air-conditioned coach. We checked the list pasted on the side, and sure enough our names were there along with a couple of others, but there were no seat numbers. The guard also confirmed this was our coach, so we just got on to find ourselves a seat. This first class coach was only made up of four small separate compartments with each one having it's own locking door in from the aisle.

Our tickets had AC written on them, but this did not mean air conditioning, it meant air cooled, which basically meant the windows opened. To be fair there was also some fans on the ceiling, but these only served to circulate the warm air. It was like sitting under a warm air hand drier you would find in public toilets.

The compartment we chose had one long bench seat that was covered in some kind of hard wearing plastic fabric, with another one above that could be folded down to form an upper bunk. It would be alright so long as it was only the two of us in there, this meant we would be able to stretch out with a bunk each if we wanted. There were bars across the windows on the outside, I don't know if this was to stop those on the outside from getting inside, or to stop those on the inside from getting outside!

Still we were happy enough and settled in for our eight-hour journey, locking the door to make sure we had the compartment to ourselves. I don't know why we bothered, two out of the other three were empty, and as far as I know, no one ever did use them.

The train departed exactly on time without any problems and we settled back to look out of the window. Being that the compartment only had one long bench seat meant only one of us could sit by the window, and as we were travelling in the opposite direction to the way we were facing could only see things we were passing, and not those we were approaching. Nick soon got fed up with me sitting by the window and retired to the upper bunk to sleep. He was back down after only a few minutes complaining that it was even hotter up there, a bit like the top shelf in an oven.

The train made it's first stop after about an hour, as we pulled into the platform all we could hear was a man shouting copy, copy, copy, he sounded like a mini cab controller on speed. We looked out the window to see what was happening? The man with a large urn strapped to his back was not shouting what we thought was copy,copy,copy!

He was shouting coffee, coffee, coffee or the equivalent in his language. We called him over to the window and bought a couple of cups from him, both of us were a little disappointed that he served the coffee in little plastic cups, the sort you get from vending machines. We were hoping it would be served in little clay cups like the tea wallahs used on the platforms in the north of the country.
Still it did make us laugh and we used this as a call sign from then on whenever we fancied a cuppa.

Here in the South of India they tend to drink hot sweet coffee as opposed to hot sweet tea, and again it's nigh on impossible to get one without sugar in it. I just had to grin and bear it, or go without.
Sometimes you fancy a hot drink with some caffeine in it, opposed to drinking the bottled water that has reached boiling point in this heat, but has nothing in it and tastes like piss after a couple of hours.

After a couple of hours in this single bench compartment where only one of us could sit by the window, we decided to move to the next one so that we both could sit next to an open window. The breeze blowing through the open windows was warm, but served to keep us cool enough, so much so that I was not sweating anymore and feeling comfortable.

There was no one else in the entire coach by now, those that had been on the train from Madurai had got off at the last stop. We sat back to enjoy the view as the train chugged along at a steady pace. Some of the views were really fantastic as we passed through mile after mile of palm groves and banana plantations. There were views of shepherds tending great herds of goats, also men and women working in the rice paddies and wheat fields that were being bathed in the golden sunshine of the late afternoon.

There were a million pictures that could have been taken, but obviously I was not able to because the train was moving, this did not bother me at all, I was just happy to see it all and store the images in my mind.

We saw wooden carts heavily laden with freshly harvested crops, being pulled by tired looking oxen slowly along country lanes, children in rivers swimming would wave at the train passing, their mothers, I assume, who were washing clothes on the river banks, would also stop and look up as the train sped by sounding off long loud blasts on the horn in acknowledgement as we passed.

Whenever the train stopped, be it at a signal in a passing loop miles from anywhere, or in a station, people would appear from nowhere begging or selling all kinds of food and drink to the passengers through the open carriage windows.
A train journey is a joy to behold and great way to see India, you don't even have to look for sights, they come to you.
Nick who is a bit of a secret twitcher had his binoculars to look at the various birds along the way, and I guess that's fine as he saw a lot species that he would otherwise not have in the towns and city's. Every now and then he would say something like "look there's a great spotted wobbly warbled wotsit", I just took the piss out of him, a bird is a bird to me, Nick thinks I'm a Philistine, whatever kind of bird that is!

The train made frequent stops at some of the smaller stations along the way, mostly it was school children, and people on their way home from work that who would board, and then they would get off a few miles further up the line, even if there wasn't a station anywhere in sight.

It had not gone unnoticed by the locals that we were on the train, a large group of students came to our window on one platform to ask us questions. It was all the usual questions, and as usual we would give a different answer each time. I think this time when asked which country we were from, we replied that we were Polish. That's nice said one young boy walking away shaking his head in disbelief.

Around six thirty the train was approaching a mountainous region near Aralvalmoli, I stared out the window in awe at the sight of this mountain range and the fantastic colours of the earth all around us.
In this area there was a lot of brickworks, due I suppose to the clay being good for brick making, it was a fantastic red terracotta that changed in shade, depending on the effect the now setting sun was having across the land. At one stage the sky was a dark red, and with the earth being the same colour it was giving everything a strange, yet wonderful glow.

In this region I also noticed mile after mile of giant wind turbines, there must have been thousands of them laid out systematically in grids, and they were facing in all different directions in order to allow at least some of them to catch whatever wind was blowing.

Just before we arrived at Nagercoil I checked the timetable courtesy of Nicks pocket watch to see if we were running to time. Nick said what did it matter anyway, not because he wasn't bothered, more because he couldn't be bothered to search his pockets for it. What good is a watch you never look at? And why bring it in the first place? It had been a present from his wife Sue, so I suppose he had to use it sometime.
Anyway, it turned out that we were running about fifteen minutes late, which, by Indian long distance train running is not bad at all
.
Copy, copy, copy, that's what we wanted now as we arrived at Nagercoil, but we could not hear the dulcet tones of this sound anywhere! I looked down the platform, I could see no coffee wallah, only a kiosk.
Up to now the train had only been stopping in platforms for a couple of minutes at a time, but I decided to take a chance and ran to the kiosk to get us some copy, copy, copy!
Out of breath from my hundred yard dash I shouted at the man behind the counter "two coffees, and could I have them quickly please". The man looked at me strangely, then took what seemed to be an eternity before shouting, what I imagine was the order for two coffees to someone in a room behind him. All the time I was like a sprinter in the blocks keeping one eye on the train ready to make another hundred-yard dash should it start to move.

The copy, sorry, coffee turned up after about a minute that, seemed like an hour. "six rupees please" said the man as he handed them over. I gave him a twenty rupee note, "sorry no change, you have anything smaller?" he said. This was a note worth only about thirty pence, if I had anything smaller it would have been nothing. "Don't worry, keep the change" I said, rushing back to the train trying not to spill the coffee, or scold myself as it slopped about.

The train still had not moved as I got back into the compartment panting and sweating.
We had almost finished the sweet coffee and still the train had not moved off. We thought there was probably something wrong, I checked the timetable again, "what time is it now?" I asked Nick, who got out his pocket watch grudgingly and told me it was just after seven! I looked in the timetable again.
" Fancy another coffee" I said, "because the train is not booked to leave here until eight!"

Although my eyes were shut and my body stretched out on the bench seat, I was not asleep as the train stood motionless in Nagercoil station. I heard the door of the compartment open and the sound of someone making them comfortable on the seat opposite.

A voice said something I could not quite understand, but I managed to catch the last bit that I thought sounded like "ticket examiner". I then heard Nick say " I beg your pardon".
The voice again repeated what had been said, and again I only understood the words "ticket examiner".
I opened my eyes to look at who I thought was the ticket examiner, but it wasn't, it was a well-dressed Indian man who was just another passenger.
Why he had got in this compartment I don't know, as all the others were empty.
Again Nick said "I beg your pardon"
The passenger who had just joined us was obviously a little put out by this reply and said sternly in his best Queens English "Don't you speak English?" to which Nick replied "Yes I do, but you don't!" I had to turn my head away to control myself, I was laughing so much.

The Indian Gentleman got up and went in search of another compartment, only to come back a few minutes later, and then sat back down where he had been originally closing the door and window blinds as he did so. No further conversation took place. Although I was still laughing to myself as I watched Nick trying hard to avoid making any eye contact with him.
The ticket examiner did come into the compartment a few minutes later and checked our tickets, the Indian Gentleman did not have one! A heated conversation took place before he handed over a wad of rupees to the examiner in exchange for a written ticket.
I don't know if he was trying to avoid paying his fare, and maybe he thought that if he sat in our compartment the examiner would not catch him. That was obviously the question he was trying to ask when he first got on. It was just a shame Nick did not speak English.

Trivandrum station was very busy as we pulled in an hour later.
Hotel Chaithram was the name of the place we had planned to use, and was not too far from the station according to the guidebook, so we planned to walk there
.
The rickshaw driver said that it was far, but he would take us there for only 10 rupees. We knew it was not far and that he was only trying his luck, but we were not going to argue over a 10-rupee fare.

He was right, it was far, about as far as you could spit! We were in the rickshaw for about 10 seconds at most. Nick checked the price of rooms before viewing one, he thought they were not that good, but would do for one night at least.

The man behind the check-in counter then said that he had shown Nick the wrong room, that one was 700 rupees a night, and not 600 as he had first said.
The room was not even worth 600, so there was no way we were going to pay 700! A little exchange of words took place with the man behind the desk finally agreeing that we could have it for 600.

Another young man who was sat at a desk to the left of the reception, he asked if he could sort out any sight seeing trips for us? I felt like telling him to fu*k off, it was ten o'clock at night, I had been travelling for the best part of nine hours and I was a little tired and a bit ratty, but again I just smiled and said "No thank you, were not staying long".

It was late and dark, we were hungry and in need of a wash, otherwise we would have gone somewhere else there and then, rather than argue the toss with this man, who seemed genuinely put out. Maybe it was because this hotel was a Government run establishment they felt it could charge so much, for what in reality was a rather shabby room.
I have stayed in some of the top hotels in the World, and some of the worst hotels in the World, I really only see the rooms as somewhere to crash for the night, and so long as there is a bed it's alright with me. But you still have to appreciate that there is a going rate for these rooms, and this room was not priced at that rate.

The curtains were no thicker than a cigarette paper, the wallpaper was peeling, the carpets were in a bad state and the bathroom had a defective taps.   At least we had two fair size beds, even if the mattresses were only an inch thick, and the pillows were not much thicker, it would do for one night. .
First impressions can be very deceiving as this Hotel looked very nice from the outside, and even the foyer didn't look that bad, giving it the look of a clean well run establishment.

The hotel restaurant was due to close at 10.30 so we didn't hang about settling in, preferring instead to eat straight away before having a shower and then bed. The restaurant was also a little run down, with the off white walls in need of a repaint, especially the parts that had large mildew damp spots, and to top it all the food was very expensive for what we had, food is food, and tonight's was very average, but served it's purpose, and we went to bed with a full stomach, and a refreshed body after having our clean up under a sporadic shower .

To say the bed was so hard, it did not take me long to drop off to sleep just after I had written my journal. I was thinking about the train journey as I fell asleep. "Don't you speak English?" I was still laughing to myself, and was going to ask Nick what time it was, but thought better of it.