The long and winding - and bumpy, crazy, cow-jammed - road

In general I love long journeys, particularly train and bus travel. I welcome the prospect of that time stretching ahead where nothing more will be demanded of me, but that I sit, lost in my thoughts and watch the world go by. It is also a great way to observe (or basically have a good nose at) the lives of others; what will they have for lunch, what book are they reading, what does their voice sound like when they answer their phone? In a foreign country, where the customs and culture are so different, the people watching becomes the equivalent of an extreme sport - a high octane, gripping and occasionally heart-stopping occupation. It is not unsuprising then that some of my most memorable moments in India have taken place on the road, and so I thought I would share some of them with you.

As with everything in India, the transport system is a mass of contradictions; the terribly antiquated and out-moded (filling in a form at one booth and then taking it to another to buy the ticket) colliding head on with the arrestingly modern and efficient (you can text to find out your seat numbers - I did this and it worked beautifully!). There are many features of train travel here that I admire; for example, there are electronic signs which indicate where each carriage will stop so you can wait at exactly the right place on the platform. The food is pretty good; you get a neat little box - a bit like on an airline, but better quality - of freshly cooked biriyani, or curry or a selection of snacks and various condiments. Very tasty. The staff, who on occasion seem to outnumber the passengers, even come round and take your order. At every station, chai and snack wallahs lay siege to the train, jumping on board to dispense drinks, or shoving samosas, packs of peanuts, or roasted chickpeas in through the windows. On sleeper trains, depending on what class you travel - and this being India there are a gazillion different classes - you will be given crisp, laundered sheets, a pillow and a blanket. All terribly civilised.

And then there are the more challenging features of rail travel…Trying to purchase a ticket can resemble something of a full-on rugby scrum. The absence of queueing can certainly pose a problem here. But once you get over your indignation and rage, which is a complete waste of time as the concept of turn taking just doesn't exist, engage your elbows and violently hurl yourself towards the counter with total disregard for those around you, it's actually not that bad. The same prinicples apply to boarding and disembarking the train.

You also need to be alert to the initially disconcerting practice of passengers waiting on the platform hurling their bags in through the windows by way of reserving their seat, this particularly applies to bus travel where window seats are like gold-dust. Of course there is the dirt - some of the carriages can be filthy - which is particularly unpleasant on sleeper journeys where you actually have to lie down in God only knows what. Many of the trains are very old and in need of a repair or two. I have passed a good few hours trying to fend off the stiff breeze blowing in through the broken window that won't close and remembering with gritted teeth how I promised in APK never to moan about being cold.

Then of course, most memorable are the people you encounter. People-watching has come under great threat in the UK as a result of recent techonological advances. I hold lap-tops, wi-fi and ipods entirely responsible, because whilst people are glued to computer screens, or plugged into ipods, the opportunity for witnessing, or indeed participating in any interesting human interaction has been severely curtailed. Here in India where the ipod/lap-top revolution has not reached the masses, there is no such restriction and the whole spectrum of human life reveals itself in glorious techni-colour before your very eyes.

As I may have indicated, Indian people don't have the same sense of personal space or mutual consideration that is so profoundly instilled into us Europeans. Take for example, the Indian family who boarded the night train that we were on at about two in the morning. It may as well have been two in the afternoon for all the consideration they showed their fellow passengers; they banged and crashed around on the bunks below ours, switching fans and lights on and off with gay abandon and shoving parcels on the shelves by our heads. The baby was crying, the kids were playing games and the adults were laughing, talking and divvying up food. Sleep was not an option, and in the end you have to just enjoy it for what it is - asking them to be quiet would most likely be met with blank expressions of complete incomprehension.

Most trains here have one compartment designated just for women and children, and one of my favourite journeys was when we didn't have assigned seats for this train and got moved to the Women's carriage by the conductor. It proved a welcome relief to be out of the scrutinising gaze of our predominantly male passengers, especially as the train was packed with military personnel. The compartment was rammed with bodies and there are big shelf-like luggage racks above the seats, on which mothers were busily arranging their children like jars on a pantry shelf. We stopped at one particularly crowded station and a hoard of people appeared at the windows. Then the husbands, fathers and brothers of the female passengers proceeded to fling open the shutters on our windows and attempt to procure seats for their family members who were in the process of boarding the train. 

As the women descended on the carriage I couldn't get over the noise and hurly-burly. It was like a brood of hens arriving - clucking, squawking, pecking and flapping. Bags, children, odd-shaped packages, spare coats are blankets were strewn haywire across every available surface like a flurry of feathers. Jen and I were given no choice but to share our seats - me with a young woman, Jen with a woman who also had a child on her lap. Parcels were shoved under our seats and a bag containing a strong-smelling substance of some sort was suspended on the hook between our opposite facing seats. Jen and I amused ourselves by imagining a similar scene in the UK and superimposing the dialogue onto this scene of mayhem and chaos…"I'm terribly sorry, but I believe this may be my seat", "Would you mind awfully if I put this suitcase under your seat and bash your legs to bits in the process?""I'm so sorry to trouble you, but would you mind if I hang this foul-smelling bag within inches of your nostrils for the remainder of the journey?". This kept us laughing as we marvelled at the spectacle surrounding us.

Miraculously everyone settled down, found their place and the train got going. We were by now attracting quite a few curious stares, a young boy broke the ice with a tirade of questions "What is your favourite film/music/colour/animal (camel, of course) and was endearingly disappointed when we explained that we don't play computer games and so couldn't supply an informed answer on that front. Then the women got stuck in…first question, which is always without fail, "Are you married?". Our reply, in the negative, resulted in great incredulity, more curiosity and a touch of amusement. The women were fascinated as we explained (despite the langage barrier) that women do not marry so young in the West, and that the majority of marriages are "love marriages" as opposed to "arranged marriages". When Jen tried to explain that she has been with her boyfriend for ten years, one women mistakenly heard that she has had 'ten boyfriends' - which would be truly scandalous here. The communication error provoked gales of laughter all round; this particular brand of humour clearly transcended any cultural barriers.

After an hour or so, the women decided it was lunch time. A feast of home-made parathas, pickles, curd, crisps, and biscuits was conjured from various bags, tiffin boxes and foil packages. This was distributed first to the children who, like hungry chicks, were waiting open-mouthed on the shelf-seats above, and then the women themselves tucked in. Horrified at our measly packets of crisps and apples, they insisted we share their home-cooked fare…I wasn't complaining as the pile of parathas, curried chilli and potato accumulated on my lap. They even procured me a chai in a plastic cup from a passing chai-wallah. I was a very happy passenger.

The next drama involved the young child sitting on the lap of the woman sharing Jen's seat. In my opinion, the poor girl has been looking for some time now as though she could really use a trip to the ladies' room, and then of course the inevitable happened and a puddle of wee appeared on the carriage floor. I shouldn't have described this as a drama - in England this would be a drama - but here no one batted an eye-lid as the mum tore up newspapers and used them to mop up the offending puddle. It was only Jen and I who reached urgently to remove our belongings from harm's way, and couldn't prevent a mild "eugh!" expression from crossing our faces. Sorry to be graphic, but it is the same with vomit here too, which is actually more of a bus travel hazard. Parents will just shove their child's head out the window (or their own for that matter), do what has to be done without fuss and that's it.

As an aside, I have to say though that the government here could do well to introduce an education and awareness campaign on the 'Prevention of Travel Sickness'. It is quite frustrating to witness children being fed sugary fizzy drinks, hugged tightly againts their parents, and bundled up in blankets and told to lie down on the seats. I want to go over and tell them "Sit the child up, open the window, make them look out at the view, go to the front of the bus, suck a mint, don't give them coke"! I think this could dramatically reduce the incidence of travel sickness - and that of pedestrians, fellow passengers and other vehicles being sprayed with sick (again...EUGH)!

Other eventful journeys include the night sleeper bus between Udaipur and Bundi. We had done one sleeper bus journey and found it suprisingly comfortable. Lulled into a false sense of security, we unknowingly signed ourselves up for another journey, which has now officially become known as "the worst night's (lack of) sleep of my life". It didn't start out auspiciously as we had to walk about 300m from the tour operator's stand to where the bus was waiting for us…and it started to rain. Not just a bit of drizzle, but buckets of the stuff; this in a location  where it is boasted that a child can commonly reach the age of seven without seeing a single drop of precipitation! So, ordinarily a down-pour would be pretty exciting stuff, when you are carrying a massive backpack with no water-proofing and know that you will be spending the night in the (by now wet) clothers you are wearing…suddenly not so exciting.

Anyway, we boarded the bus, fortunately before we had reached drowned-rat status, and located our sleeper compartment. They are like kitchen cupboards with sliding doors and you climb up a little ladder to get into them. It then usually requires a Herculean effort to close the doors again as they are rusted/broken/sticking. This one was definitely grottier than before and I fought hard to stop my imagination conjuring images of all the feet, shoes, hair, and bodily fluids that had most likely made contact with the mattress during its life-time. We did our best to make ourselves comfy and lay down hoping for a few hours kip. Then proceeded eight of the most uncomfortable hours of my life, which rendered the possibility of sleep an absolute joke. I don't know what they do to the roads or the suspension of the bus to achieve that effect, but it is remarkable and would give Alton Tower's meanest ride a run for its money.

When we arrived in Bundi at six in the morning, I felt like I had been in some kind of centrifuge and all my innards had solidified in a coagulated lump somewhere in my gut, leaving my limbs and body like jelly - limp, wobbly and shaky. We hobbled off the bus in a state of mild shock and collapsed gratefully into a rickshaw, whose motion felt positively swan-like in comparison. We were given a warm welcome by our guest house owners who, bless them, had been up and waiting for us since five. We were shown to our beds, which we wasted no time in getting into, and just as when you have spent the day on a boat (or a camel) and, on lying down your body recalls the earlier motion, it took some time for the bumping, rattling and jolting sensation to recede from my shattered body.

Gosh, I have chuntered on and I still haven't recounted the bus journey to Mt Abu where I ended up sitting astride a box next to the driver, which it transpired contained the bus's rapidly overheating engine. I then spent the journey in all manner of stange contortions and manoevres to avoid a burnt bottom! Then there was the family that I met on the platform whilst waiting for my delayed train to Delhi, who took me under their wing. They were in fact two famillies - one now living in the States - and were awaiting the arrival of their respective son and daughter from Mumbai. They had 'set them up' six months ago and they were now coming back to their familiy home to get married! They told me all about the various and elaborate ceremonies that were planned for the next few days. One of the mothers, who taught botany at the local college, said how much she would miss her daughter when she moved to America with her new husband's family, however she was very pleased with the match. And of course, they invited me to the wedding!

Then there are the various near-misses and hair-raising events I have witnessed as families scramble across railway lines to board a train and people leap on and off trains and buses as they pull away from stations at alarming speeds. There was the rickshaw ride where our driver realised he had missed the exit so stopped, got out and manually reversed the rickshaw by pushing it back to the junction - ON A MOTORWAY!. Another where our driver was pulled over by the police for not wearing a uniform (there's a uniform? - we hadn't noticed) and was not allowed to continue until a sufficient fine (i.e. bribe) had been paid. Oh, and the time that our bus suddenly crossed through a gap in the barriers dividing the road and blithely drove about 400 meters down the hard shoulder of the opposite carriageway in order to reach the snack/restaurant. This place must clearly be renowned for its chai (or more probably the driver had a deal with the restaurant owners) as there was a perfectly good restaurant on the side of the road that would not have involved us risking life and limb to get to.

More poignantly there are the many people for whom the train and bus stations are a home; communities of beggars and homeless people - and a lot of kids - inhabit the platforms making a living as best they can. It is so hard to know what to do when they ask for money; you are not supposed to give and perpetuate the problem, but is that just an excuse to appease our Western guilt? Often we buy food for them, which seems to go down well and is a bit of a compromise - anyway, that's for another blog perhaps. Then there is the general daily dodging of cows, cycle rick-shaws, and road side stalls. 

So now that I am going to settle in Delhi for a few months (did you all know that?) the opportunities and adventures afforded by long-distance journeys will be somewhat diminished. However, I am sure the local buses, rickshaws - and have I mentioned the shiny, gleaming new metro system - will provide plenty of opportunity for indulging my all time favourite pass-time of people-watching.