The Long Journey to the South

Location: Chennai, SE India

We're finding that what 'they' say is true: it's tough traveling here in India. Case in point: I just hit a windfall. I've 'acquired' three small rolls of toilet paper from the fancy hotel bathroom that's connected to the bar we just came from. Note: we're not staying in the fancy hotel and bars in India are hard to come by. Hindus, by rule, don't drink.

So the three rolls really amount to 1/4 of a roll from home, but here, toilet paper is a commodity, so opportunist that I've become (where TP is concerned), I'll not let those rolls stay in that lonely 'ole bathroom. Another thing to note: bars here are dark and full of men. I'm usually the only female present, because India is a man's world. More on that to come in future entries... But I guess this doesn't REALLY speak to why it's 'tough' to travel here in India...

Maybe it's because we're always on the go, and when you're on the go, prices have to be negotiated, destinations have to be found, language barriers must be conquered, and all of it is difficult when you don't know what the hell you're doing.

We are a bit road weary, and the problem stems in covering so much territory in so little time. In the 2.5 weeks we've been on the road, we've taken a number of trains. Our last journey began in Varanasi. We traveled overnight to a place called Bhopal, whose only claim to fame is that the town is in the center of India and also happens to be the location of a major industrial disaster.

Arriving in Bhopal, we disembarked from the train and set off to look for the hotel zone, which was within walking distance from the train station according to Lonely Planet. Unfortunatley, we weren't quite sure which way to walk and no-one would give us directions without a few rupees in hand. We asked several people... a young boy laughed at us (probably showing off for the two girls he was walking with) and a merchant selling Chai shooed us off with a wave of the hand. Tuk tuk drivers lent a deaf ear... it was maddening. Finally some government officals gave us the right information, although by that time we didn't really trust them and the silhouette of our backpacks were etched upon our backs in sweat.

Seems that if you don't pay, you will get the opposite directions to where you want to go. But with no other choice, we followed their guidance and eventually wound up in the right place.

Why were we in Bhopal, anyway? We stopped there to break up the long trip to the South. Otherwise, it would have been a 52 hour train ride.

So let me explain in more deatil: from Varanasi, we took the overnight train to Bhopal, where we could get off, stay the night, and stretch our legs. The morning after our arrival we secured tickets on the overnight train to Chennai: FIRST CLASS. In India, Benjamin and I can afford to travel first class, at least once in a while, so that evening, we were on the 24 hour train to Chennai (which is still, unfortunatley, an overnight ride from our desired locale, Kerala).

Going first class is grand. We had our own compartment on the train, free from hawkers with shoe shine kits and baskets of potato chips, watches, walkmans, newspapers, reading glasses, and a multitude of other things a backpacker does not need... in the other train classes, we've been constantly intruded upon by street urchins, vendors, and eunichs looking for a little income from a captive audience.

No matter how you go, the view from the train is worthwhile. You see many snippets of life, scenes, that weave a rich tapestry of life in-between places:

Fields a wheat in a patchwork of yellow and green, fences made of twigs and sticks, a white shirt or a cobalt blue sari in the monochromatic palette of a dry country side, homes of brick with tiled roofs, homes of mud with thatched roofs, cement dwellings of faded blue and green, goat herders, water buffalos with skin stretched tightly over the haunches, clothes strung up on lines or laid upon bushes to dry in the sun, connicle domes of cow paddies, women pumping water from a well... The peacefullness and tranquility that comes with open space, the sight of the horizon, fields, forests, grazing animals, birds on telephone wires, families gathered around a communal fire, the breeze blowing a purple scarf against dark brown skin.

Sometimes, the homes are built so close to the tracks, you might be sitting next to someone's grandma, having a conversation neither of you can understand, or you might accidentally feel the spittle from the man on the bench chewing betel. You can pick up a snack from the vendor selling peanuts, samosas, and carrots. You can watch the men who are making carpets or throwing pottery on a wheel. You can cheer for the children playing cricket or wave to them from their bedroom window.

When on a train, you can go to sleep and wake to an entirely different landscape, a totally new place. I woke to see a dry landscape, looking crispy and fried like vegetable pakoras, camels munching on trees, a bicycle leaning against a shady tree: it was a bit like a lemonade commercial, that bicycle... despite the heat that I knew baked the lands outside of the air conditioned train, that bicycle and tree looked too refreshing.

At times, staring out the window, I felt like I'd traveled back in time... to 'Jesus days'. Wooden carts pulled by donkeys, figures off in the distance walking along a dusty tract in the fields with robes flowing behind them in a rare breeze, people carrying water in silver vessels upon their heads... The only thing that brought me back to the present was the occasional electricity tower.

So we are in Chennai are will be on another train tomorrow night to Kerala, where we will finally slow things down -- in the tropical beauty of beach towns and along the canals and waterways of the backwaters...

Stay tuned...