The long and winding track….16 hours. Palolem to Cochin.

I reluctantly packed up my little beach shack after showing it to two somewhat crazy Canadian women who were looking for a place to stay. They were Oscar and Felix visit India – had met in Delhi and teamed up for God knows why. The one woman from Vancouver, maybe 50 years old, was terrified of everything: Indian people, food, buses, trains, insects….What the Hell are you doing in India, alone I asked? No flights to LA or Hawaii???? And the second women was a butchy type who explained, in way more detail than I ever wanted to hear, her botched multiple plastic surgeries. She came for an eyelid lift -$500, a cheek sucking in something, a chin implant and on and on. Seems she also had had numerous surgeries in Thailand. Not knowing what she looked like before left me at a disadvantage but…..yikes!! She ended up looking like Richard Simmons - really. Just a taller version with the same white 'wife beater' singlet and the bad eighth grade volleyball team shorts. No bra and she had definitely did not have new boobs. I did want to suggest that she might try breast implants her next go round as I feared she would tell me about the breast removal she had had…..and so…..I stuffed my little bag and called the night rickshaw, promised my new Palolem beach family that I would definitely return next year (three lovely sisters and all their daughters) and headed out of town into the pitch black night.

The rickshaw bumped and rocked along the cow and pig paths and then turned down a very tiny narrow lane. I wanted to ensure that the driver understood I was going to the train station and not to the killing fields but the noise of the exhaust banging under me did not allow for that. After about 10 minutes in complete darkness we stopped at the only light bulb around. A single light on a staircase to nowhere. He motioned me out and I started to wonder where the hell a train station could be and how could it appear at the top of a staircase? I paid him and was deposited under that dimly lit bulb in the middle of a field of some type. Nowhere else to go but up the stairs, hoping to God that there would be a station somewhere on the horizon. Sure enough, after hauling my lot up the steep stairs, sweating profusely in the extreme humidity, I was met by the toothy grin of the stationmaster who had been sitting in the dark watching television from a plastic lawn chair. Again, what the hell? Where were the train tracks and was this part of a weird dream? Really – there was no sign of anything around this staircase, no vehicles, bicycles, lights, voices…..the twilight zone!!!

Right away I asked where the train tracks were and the grinning stationmaster pointed out past the stair landing into the darkness. Yikes, am I going to have to flag this train down and find my place somewhere in the darkness?. It hadn’t been all that easy in Ajmer and that station had lights and a platform!!! With no time lost, the regular questions regarding my marital status, my children and my travelling companion came up and I told him, because he was waaay too smiley in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere….that I was married and was going to meet my husband. He took my ticket – train tickets have your age printed on them????, and said, you 51??? Oh, me thought you way younger. Instantly his demeanor changed and he returned to a regular Indian worker who sits on a plastic chair for thirty or forty years watching television with no expression whatsoever. It has taken me a while (little slow) to figure out, that if a service of some sort is required, then it is critical to keep them thinking they might be able to pull something over on you. I had played my cards poorly on this one as I was the only passenger around and I needed his help to find the train somewhere in the black field.

Then, along came a little angel, Zoe, from London. She huffed and puffed her bags up the stairs and emerged into the light with exactly the same look of complete bewilderment that I had had just 10 minutes before. "There is nothing here, I was getting very frightened coming down this path with my rickshaw and then he just dumped me and and and…"  Yup, a very strange place indeed. The station master came back to life: seems a 20 something gorgeous girl rekindled his desire to serve…..he tried to get into our conversation but we deliberately worked at keeping him away from us physically as his predator demeanor was rather off-putting. We compared our tickets and sleeper class and discovered that we would not be in the same class or car. Zoe was travelling no air con and I had air con. We swapped stories and she pulled out a note the guys at her guest house had stuffed in her bag. We read it together and it was a very sweet goodbye from the owners, along with a small Ganeesh – A holy elephant pendant for her to wear to bring her travelling luck. So sweet some of these Indians and then so lecherous are others.

As the time got closer for our train to arrive, two other couples showed up, topping the stairs with that same look of WTF? The six of us headed out into the dark to find the tracks and when we did, we tried to come up, collectively, with some idea of how to figure out where our individual cars might stop. The station master sauntered out for a smoke and gave the helpful advice of….”very long train….go far down there”  pointing down the track into the dark. So we trundled along the dusty path beside the train track, in the night and hoped we would not have to chase the train if it was not going to stop where we were. I should note the crazy thing about catching the train in the smaller centers is that the train pulls in and everyone on the platform starts to run, trying to find their cars as the train stops only for a few minutes. People smash into each other, bags go flying and some people are forced to do full sprints to find their cars. I am sure many are left on the platforms. Survival of the biggest, the loudest the fittest, and the smartest….this is India after all and the competition among 1.2 billion is fierce.

As the five of us were standing beside the track (we had left Zoe closer to the station as the rest of us had different combinations of seats/sleepers but all air con) there was a complete power failure. Now, it was even darker than before as the station lights had provided a little glow that allowed us to see it in the distance. Power surges and full outages were a daily, sometimes hourly occurrence in Goa, and now we truly were standing in the complete darkness – we could not even see our hands in front of our faces: we could only feel the track in front of us and hope we were not standing in the middle of it.  Being MacGyver of the travelers, I pulled out my handy dandy headlamp with the lithium supersonic flood light and wowed the rest of the tribe. Other than temporarily blinding them when I bobbed my head, we figured the train could at least find us in the dark. The power burped on after about 10 minutes and around midnight we saw the train approaching.

As the cars flashed by we ran for our individual cars and I was so happy to find mine and heave my bag into the open doorway before it pulled away just as quickly as it had arrived. All good, so far. I am on the train. Up to this point I hadn’t given much thought on what the inside configuration might look like as I can only concentrate on one thing at a time and finding the train and getting on had consumed that energy

I travel with three bags. My little wheelie thing filled with a couple if items of clothing and hordes of power crap: adapters, (one for each country….for god sake, can there not be a conference at the UN, a vote for the best plug configuration, and let’s just get on with the one world, one plug idea……my next campaign)…., rechargers, laundry store, travelling hospital pharmacy, MacGyver tools, home Gym etc etc and my backpack which contains my laptop, my 10 lb Lonely Planet India…ok….it is a big country but do you have to put it all in one volume?, my reading books, notebooks, toilet paper, glasses, candy, crystal light, and everything heavy so it doesn’t get weighed at check in counters, and my purse which has become just another huge carryon with hand sanitizer, toilet paper, shawls, money, id…..OK, you get the picture…Me? I’m not that big…..my bags….plentiful and getting bigger with each market stop…..

I open the compartment into the train, not thinking much about what it would look like. I had assumed I would soon see what it would look like. Wrong!!!! Pitch black. Nada, no light, complete darkness and as my eyes adjusted it looked to me exactly as I had seen of the pictures of Auschwitz; the concentration camp cattle cars….bodies everywhere and snoring and wheezing and horking noises and farting and I had only just been inside for 30 seconds! I was supposedly to be in a 6 bunk sleeper but there did not seem to be any compartments – just a hostel of triple bunk beds on tracks, and waaaay more than 6 bunks and no obvious combination of a six configuration. I knew my bed was number 17 and was a lower bunk (thank God, as I had requested a top bunk as others said that was best but hadn’t been able to get it and had been disappointed!!) I tried to make my way into the car but my backpack (on my back) kept hitting legs sticking out and my wheelie pack was too wide for the narrow pathway between bunks. I turned my wheelie on its side to drag it and I inched along trying to decipher the numbering system, in fact, trying to ascertain if there was a numbering system and realized that every snorer, farter and wheezer was male….What happened to those women’s cars I had read about??? I inched along, feeling in front of me in the darkness, til I came across an empty lower bunk. I figured that must be mine as it was empty. I pulled off my backpack, dropped it on the end of the bed, untangled my purse and plopped it off and then pulled my wheelie close to the bunk before tossing myself onto the bed (remember the train is moving and this is India and not Switzerland) you swing and sway in these ancient cars on ancient tracks: in Switzerland it is like a hovercraft – high-speed Jetson’s style floating cabin). The bed compartment was a little space – very little considering in a regular 8 foot ceiling height they had three stacked bunks. Just as my body hits the bed I realize it is not flat but very bumpy. And rather loud and wheezy……I had flung myself on top of some Indian man!!! Instantly my whole being reacted and I jerked myself off of him, grabbed my daypack and my purse and catapulted myself back out into the black corridor. Thankfully he did not wake, he just rolled over and continued wheezing away. Yikes again. Now what??? I inched along, still trying to find numbers or a sign from heaven when a conductor guy shows up in the dark with a penlight and shines it onto the number 17 – this time an empty bunk.

With profound joy, I untangle my stuff and crawl into the space, pleased beyond belief with my accomplishment. I took a moment to be grateful for having found the train, the train car, the cabin and now my little piece of the world for the next 16 hours. It was good.

Until….the next stop. I had just unfurled my fabulous silk sleeping sheet and tucked it lovingly around the grimy train pillow so that my that my princess skin would not have to touch the collected drool and spew of 1000 previous wheezers. I organized the world’s heaviest blanket over my feet. So heavy that, when folded, it bent my feet back. These are the heaviest wool blankets I have ever felt – we had some on our beds in Rajasthan but these train models are even heavier than those. I have no idea what they can possible be made of to have this kind of weight. Perhaps recycled car engines spun with water buffalo wool? I installed my earplugs to block out the snoring and farting, placed my silk British Air eye mask over my eyes and laid back, rocking gently with the clickety clack of the tracks, enjoying the sound of the train horn as it pulled into the next station. Are you kidding me? There are more stations and you can pack more people onto this friggin train???

Yup – the doors open and in comes a couple and two kids…..WTF??? Kids whining and kicking and both parents talking loudly like they are on a city bus midafternoon. I sit up, bump my head on the bunk above, whip off my Lone Ranger eye patch so that I can give them the hairy eyeball. Our eyes meet and they just go on and on and on. The kids whine and the Dad fusses over her sari and who can see what and the blankets and the pillows and he paces and paces and talks and talks and talks – loudly. I try my evil stare again….nope. Guess my third eye is not working! Then he phones someone!!! Yack yack – not one other person wakes up, it is India I guess, and considering how much personal space is available in this country – none, it shouldn’t be surprising but….I am not Indian and I want to sleep and I disdain rude behavior at 1 in the morning and I am now very cranky and pissed off. So…I take out my earplugs just in case I am already yelling and tell him to shut up. In no uncertain terms. Shut up – it is 1 in the morning and I want to sleep. His timid wife just looks at me blankly and he doesn’t know how to react. For a moment I felt like perhaps I had overreacted but then I recheck my Miss Manners Meter and glare him into submission. Then….he gets off at the next stop and leaves his wife and kids on the train…..seems like he just got on with her to make sure she couldn’t be seen and whatever and then got off and she travelled through the night. She and the kids got off later the next day. She did smile at me in the morning and I think somehow she secretly enjoyed my little cranky outburst the night before.

When I woke up everyone else around me had been awake for awhile, had turned up their bottom bunks to make couches for the top two other bunk people - that is why it is good to get the top one because you don’t have to give yours up to make seats for everybody else. But, how the hell do you get up onto the top bunk with your stuff in the dark??? And where do you chain your bag??? I am now sticking to the lower bunk as I have those issues worked out. I peeked out of my silk cloud and was greeted with smiles around from the two women I could see and just looks of amazement from the men. Often they are lecherous, sleazy looks:   ‘I want to see you naked looks’, but just as often I get looks of complete bewilderment. Perhaps like if we saw a wild monkey in a supermarket. Here, monkeys are everywhere, so to see one in a supermarket would be a little odd but not completely bizarre. Me, I am completely bizarre to so many Indian men. Just can’t fathom their mother or their sister or their Auntie (everyone over 40 is Auntie) travelling alone, and without 6 meters of fabric wrapped around her and at least three layers of fabric covering her breasts. It is fully fine to show your flabby middle, your fleshy back and your arms from the upper shoulders down, but it is completely unacceptable to not have your chest covered with less than a bra, a top and then a scarf overtop of the top to provide the three layers required of decent women. Girls from the age of 10 or so accept this. Anything less makes men, yes women are responsible for men’s behavior here, act in sexual ways. It forces their genitals to heat up in the same way eating onions or garlic does…more on that another time.

And so the morning train ritual began. I was unsure if there would be any food available on the train so I packed the requisite long journey travel foods. A pack of cookies, a sleeve of Pringles and a can of Diet Coke. The breakfast of champions!

Seems my food concern was unfounded as for the next 9 hours, train guy after train guy, walked through each compartment yelling Chai, Coffee Biryani, Dal, etc etc and every 60 seconds another food item would come through. Overkill really. Then at each stop, new guys would board the train selling food, clothes – especially the wrap skirts that are the traditional and very popular dress of southern Indian and especially Keralan men. When I woke up I noticed a few of the Businessmen in the next compartments wearing their bed sheets around their waists. I thought it unusual but figured it looked comfy at least. Then as the train entered the Kerala District I noticed the men in the fields, in the towns, on the platforms, all wearing miniskirts of folded sarongs. The sarong or wrap starts out as a regular ankle length piece of fabric but here the men grab the two bottom pieces and fold them up into the waist band to make a miniskirt or knee length number. Train sellers sold these pieces of beautiful cotton to the men on the train. Most men wear white bed sheets or tea towel looking ones. Only a few fashionistas branch out and add a little color and pattern.

As the morning wore on and the scenery became more and more beautiful: we travelled along the coast of the Arabian Sea, often right along the coastline, the waves and the miles of empty beaches coming up to the tracks. Other places were green green rice paddies and vegetable fields amidst the ‘backwaters’ or canals of Kerala. Very nice. I was going in and out of the cabin, alternating between the freezing cold of the air conditioning and the stifling heat of the area between the train cars; the smoking section. Mostly I preferred the heat as I could stand in the open doorway and hang out a bit and watch and smell the countryside as it whizzed by. Farmers and children would wave when they saw me and often we passed trains coming the opposite way and then whole cars would gather to wave and yell things (nice I think). The one really bad thing about being in between the cars is that it is the area where the toilets are and the powerfully pungent smell of the urine became, as the day wore on, so strong it provided a bit of dermabrasion to my skin every time the door opened. Like putting your head into a pail of paint stripper, or cleaning the kitty litter box after 6 months….. I made a little game of predicting ‘Indian Style” or ‘Western Style” as I saw people approaching. Indian style is just a hole with two ceramic footprints on either side or western is what we consider’ normal’. It was about 2 to 1 for the Indian style.   I decided to write to the Indian train authority and suggest that perhaps a few of the zillion food sellers could be retrained to clean the toilets at least monthly. They were not the worst I have seen but the smell in the heat was quite memorable. That smell must come from splashing remnants because the toilets do not hold anything - there is just a hole straight down onto the tracks.

On one trip back to my space, I was met by a woman from Siberia who wanted to ask me questions about the city she was headed to. I offered to lend her my Lonely Planet and that turned into her moving into my cabin, followed by her husband and all their electronic gear including a 17 inch laptop that took up one half of the bunk. This forced the Indian couples who were getting on and off to have to sit touching each other….you seldom see touching here, even with married people. Most looked pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing. The Siberians spoke only a little English so I ended up reading the Lonely Planet, translating it into Grade One English, showing them how to search for guesthouses online – they were using his phone modem: then I phoned the ones I thought might be good and we just got to know each other as best we could. Amazing what you do when all you have is copious amounts of time to share. They have come to India for the last ten years, three months every winter to attend the Ashram of Sai Baba and some other guru up north. Sai Baba is hugely popular and famous throughout the world and folks flock here by the thousands to stand in line for hours, twice a day to get a red piece of cloth from him and to hear his voice. This couple do nothing all day but wait for those two times of the day when they can line up and be in his presence. They said he is their God and I had just read a book about a woman on a spiritual quest throughout India who attended all the most popular Ashrams. From that I knew what they were talking about but feigned ignorance so I could hear it in their own words. Truly devoted and they believe that Sai Baba heals and is able to make penis type things in his mouth???? Something lost in translation there but that’s what I think a ‘Lingon” is from the book I read. He has stopped doing this now because his mouth is too old!!!!! Who knew???? I think he is in his mid eighties so maybe it is time to take a break with that mouth penis stuff anyway.

I got a little bored with the stories of miracles so concentrated on the signs in the towns and cities we passed through. Don’t know why it surprised me but the density of the cities and towns is considerable – I thought it would be more rural here in the far south. Then again, where do you fit over one billion people?

Indian advertisements, of which here in Kerala are primarily in English, are very straight forward. Posters for skin whitening creams are everywhere and promise two or three shades whiter in a week. If that was so, wouldn’t India look like Albino Nation??? I saw “Make Taller” creams that you rub on the soles of your feet and you become taller – made in the USA (maybe by Basketball Players?) and everything for Sexual Dysfunction: one common ad promises to “make your organ Long, Fat, Straight and return sex power for 20 to 25 minutes and help with Nightfall”.

The signs on the outside of buildings are as clear and literal: Home for Poor People. Home for Employed Women. Orphanage for Poor Children. Orphanage for Orphans.

As I sat watching these signs and the world go by, each smoker would spend their time telling how Kerala is the best state in the country, their city had the best everything, education, health care, and so on. None of them saw each other through the day – guys were getting on and off but the theme remained the same. Immense pride in India and pride in their hometowns. On this trip I have been told some wild claims, all very heartfelt and believed by the teller. India has the cure for cancer, it is in Ayuvedic medicine, Jesus is buried here is a huge one that comes up over and over. India is set to take over the world financially. India has the highest standards of everything……except possible garbage control and water quality (that is my take!). It really is nice to see the pride of the Indians in what they have. The reasons so few travel away from here are numerous but the one that comes up often is ‘why would you go anywhere else when India has everything???’  Sounds like the American concept of the world and one I just never expected to find in this country. No one diminishes the unbridled corruption in the police and the politicians but most believe that is only a little blip in the power surge of the people.

Finally around 3 pm it was my stop: the train was continuing for three more hours before it arrived at its final destination. I popped off the train onto the platform with hundreds of others and searched for young Zoe to no avail. The surge of the masses was just too large and the heat too unbearable to wait. I went with the flow, up and over the tracks – always massive stairs at train stations….why when everyone has bags to carry???, and made my way into Fort Cochin.