GCIRC Day 16: The Finale.
I had held off on making the decision to get off in Goa, rather than eight hours later in Panvel, until the last possible moment. I am a stubborn guy, and seeing this through to the end was something I wanted to do, out of pride. Ultimately, I had to convince myself that while I wouldn’t be going up close to our starting point in Mumbai, Troy and I had actually started the first leg of our train journey the day before everyone else when we went sleeper class from Thivim to Mumbai. We had actually made it the whole way, just not on everyone else’s schedule. If I continued, all I would really have is bragging rights to having gone further than everyone else, and that wasn’t a good enough reason to miss Cole’s first birthday. I had already missed my wife’s birthday during this trip, and had assumed for sure that I would miss Cole’s as well, until I realized we pull through the area that day.
I could not pass it up.
We arrived in Madgaon station around 10:30AM. The train stopped long enough for somewhat appropriate goodbyes. The group was scattered over 5 cars for our final ride, which made connecting with the group one last time a headache, but we did get a group shot that I hope Troy has somewhere. The Globetrooper team of Todd & Lauren joined us, and JP, our recent Canadian member, also departed here, off to retrieve his motorcycle to continue his adventure in another way.
I would like to thank Mark for organizing this trip, something that I will remember for the rest of my life. It wasn’t all easy by any means, but with the exception of one train, I always felt the most comfortable and at ease when I was riding the rails. India is as diverse and interesting a country as you will find, and I am thrilled that I got to see so much of it in such a short time. I met some great people on this trip who I hoe to be able to keep up with for years to come.
There were even joking mutterings of getting back together to do the Trans/Siberian railway next year. To homever takes up the mantle of planning that event: I am in.
Having said all that, I will admit that there is nothing quite so exquisite as a warm family bed and my family to come home to.
GCIRC Day 15: Kanniyakumari – Headed to the beach
We woke up at 4AM. To my surprise, I was not at all hung over, and managed the waking up better than many, by the looks of it. We were there for a morning sunrise pilgrimage, something completely lost on me as we loaded into prepaid taxis to the southernmost land tip of India. The cab driver stopped at what looked like no point in particular, given that it was still completely dark out, and made a gesture for us to continue on foot. Without any real idea where to proceed, I declared that I was going to “follow this group of guys who look like they know where they are going” and we headed down to the shoreline.
We were early enough to secure a spot wherever we wanted, so we chose a bench and ordered some chai. Checking my iPhone’s trusty compass, I thought I might find a better spot closer to the water, so I headed out to find a spot. Others joined me a bit later, and we talked while we waited for the sun to rise. While my iPhone camera does not do it justice, and the actual “sunrise” was marred by clouds on the horizon, I really felt happy that we had made our way there. There were thousands of people there, as there probably were every morning, overlooking Thiruvalluvar Statue (thank you wikipedia), bathing in the sea, and generally there for reasons more purposeful than our little stopover on our way through India.
Back we went to the station, we took a local train to Trivandrum, which featured some of the most striking landscapes i have seen in a country full of beautiful things to see:
Then on to Kovalam, which highlighted a different sort of beach town than Calangute, where my wife and son were waiting for me to return. It was smaller, quieter, more picturesque, and based on the prices being floated about from shop owners peddling their goods, there was a great deal more money thrown around here than you will find in northern Goa. Kovalam was where I decided once and for all, SOUTHERN INDIA IS TOO DAMN HOT DAMMIT. Troy and I thought we might get away from the usual act of securing a room to stash our bags and/or take a shower, but it was too hot not to shower, so we caved and went in with the rest of the group.
I tried to drink more, maybe continue the drunken good times from the day before, but the first beer just made me extremely sleepy, and I didn’t want to wake up in a beach chair with someone from the group yelling at me to jump in a Rickshaw, so I just stuck to window shopping and charging my dwindling phone battery.
It was a nice place to spend our last full day. We headed back out to Trivandrum and to the remarkable spiraling Indian Coffee House where we had the cheapest snacks one could possibly imagine. Then it was one last mad dash to our final train, another Rajdhani Express, which made me very happy.
Next: The final day, and the decision not to proceed to Panvel.
CGIRC Day 14: Rameswaram, elephants in Hindu temples and getting drunk
Writing this on the Bangalore Express (Started it there, anyhow).
Thing in Chennai worth noting: We picked up two extras to the group in Chennai, and I feel bad not mentioning them before. JP is a retired Canadian now living in India permanently, who is clearly extremely knowledgable about all things India and the railway. Jeg is an Indian Sikh, born and raised in Chennai who is extremely friendly and easy to talk with. Both are great additions to our merry band.
Rameswaram was quite a ride. At this point, everyone is sort of beyond the general fatigue of the trip and into a state of giggly delirium. We hit the South Eastern coast of India impressively, going over the Pambam Bridge (Thank you Steve for the name), a location so compelling Troy insisted that he would be coming back here to take more photos.
There was never any real hand-holding throughout this trip with regards to where to go or how to get there, which at times was a breath of fresh air for me, and at times was frustrating, but by this point, the group has become such a well oiled machine that all we require is three or maybe four people to know the name of what our next location will be and we break up into the appropriate number of groups to facilitate getting there. This has made for some exciting excursions for those of us who didn’t catch the name of a hotel, restaurant or town, and none more exciting than our departure here. We see Mark and Jason squeezing themselves quite badly into the smallest horse carriage I have ever seen.
“What do you think, man?” Troy asks.
“Think about what?” I look further down the street and notice a line of carriages, enough for pretty much all of us, two at a time.
Crap.
Neither of us knew where we were headed, but we hopped on anyway. Our driver (who told us his name was “Money” and when asked what the parade-float looking thing was ahead of us replied “Tourist.”) acted as if he was out to win a race to… wow, I hope he knows where we are going. Did someone tell him? Because he is beating all the other drivers…
He deposits us in front of a hotel that looks like it is being renovated. There are no people nearby. This might be the least populated spot in the whole city. I waited anxiously for another 30 seconds before I see another buggy coming. Some of us turn tail when we see the hotel to look for better digs, but those of us more adventurous (or perhaps lazy) stick around to see what we can negotiate. As it turns out, they had a nice little room for us to throw our bags in for the day.
We headed out to a large Hindu temple we saw on our way through. If it is not the centerpiece of the entire town, I would be shocked. Inside were a lot of hallways to walk through, one strip dedicated to hawker stalls, and two elephants.
I’m a little unsure of what to feel at this point. On one hand, I understand that the treatment of these animals is 88% likely to be well below what I would call nice, ethical, fair treatment. On the other hand, the spectacle of watching these amazing creatures being given a bath was not something I could ignore. I felt really lucky to have randomly caught this happening.
Outside the temple, Steve discovered his sandals were gone, and resolved to go buy some new ones. Troy decided to take Todd and I on a long walk in search of a bar. We found a liquor store instead, where we bought some “MGM” brand vodka. Tired after the walk, we ran into a newly sandaled Steve, and headed back to the hotel to lick our wounds. At the hotel we found what had to have been the only bar in town. It was in our crappy hotel. When we got there, we discovered the ladies had already started, so we bought a few beers and tucked in. Slowly, most of the group made their way to this bar, even the ones who turned their nose up at the hotel in the first place, reaffirming my suspicion that this was the town’s only bar.
Anyway, we got drunk. Not sloshed, hammered, sh*t faced. We didn’t even drink our crappy new bottles of vodka, we just got good old fashioned more-than-we-should-have-drank sort of drunk. It was necessary. Tensions felt released, we knew our days were numbered, and the group was loosening up. There wasn’t much drinking to speak of before this, or at least not as a group. It felt like the right thing to do, until you consider we had to be up at 4AM the next morning.
I got a shower in, we headed back to the station, thankfully not by buggy, and we headed off to Kanyakumari to get some beach time in hot-as-hell south India.
GCIRC Day 13: Chennai is barely worth mentioning?
The title of this is misleading. The fourth largest city in India is certainly worthwhile, but with only a few hours there in between trains, I didn’t get a remotely good look at the place, which was a shame.
The reason I know Chennai was a bust? I have taken 1300+ pictures and videos on this trip, and the entirety of my Chennai content? Mostly me making silly faces for the camera out of boredom. Below are the sum total of my Chennai photos:
Next up: Elephants in the Hindu temple in Rameswaram, and we get drunk. In that order.
GCIRC Day 12: Kolkata, and the art of passive travel
Writing this on the Coromandal Express, a 26 hour ride from Howrah to Chennai.
We had about six hours to kill in Kolkata aka Calcutta to most westerners. I had decided straight away that I was going to be the completely passive traveler today, as there were lots of potential ideas for what to try to see, where we could go, etc. My only rule for myself was that I would go for whatever plan got me to see the most things that would also not inconvenience the group.
I lean towards passive travel in general, and it’s something that drives my wife understandably nuts. In a group of two, there is plenty of room for differing opinions and discussion on where to go, what to see. Every time I shrug when my wife asks where I want to go, I can see how that is incredibly frustrating. There are many passive travelers on this trip, and in a group of this many, it works in a way that it can’t work for Christine and I. With 16 people, there will be three or four people who have clear ideas for how to proceed. The first passive choice to make was:
Head across the river to Howrah and get a hotel and take a shower, or, stay in Calcutta and go see places related to Mother Theresa.
That one was easy. See things over not seeing things. Slightly more of us chose this option. We jumped in cabs headed for Sudder St and the backpacker area to fine our own hotel to stash our bags.
During the cab ride I discovered the intensity of Kolkata, a city very much like smoggy Bangkok with some good old fashioned colonialism thrown in. This was more city than I was mentally prepared for. Happily, a benefit to passive travel is the ability to compartmentalize your experience at times like these. You, the passive traveler, are not the decision maker, and are thus exempt from responsibility if things go wrong. Somehow, that knowledge helps in otherwise tense situations, like negotiating hard on renting one hotel room for nine people for only five hours.
We head to where Mother Theresa worked with those about to die. I wasn’t fully aware of this when Troy asked, “Are you ready for this?”
Ready for what?
“The people at this place, they all came here to die.”
Wait… This is a tourist attraction? That’s incredibly morbid. I wasn’t keen to go in at this point, and thankfully they were closed for repairs, the patients moved to another facility.
But this is the thing about the passive traveler. Our Golden Rule, as it were:
If you are going to be the passive traveler, you do not get to complain about where you travel.
I am not always good at following this rule, as my wife will tell you. I whined just a bit about the dying people but by god, if it had been open, I would have gone in. Instead, it was back in cabs and off to Mother Theresa’s tomb and museum, a trip I was much happier to make.
Once that was wrapped up, we found ourselves with more time on our hands, and a new choice was presented: Go to the Victoria Monument, or head back to the hotel and shower up and/or drink some beers.
I really wanted a beer.
In order to even out the group, I decided to do whatever the fewest number of people wanted to do, which meant I ended up going to the monument with Bella and Usha. Going with the others would have forced that group to get two cabs instead of one, plus this fell into my earlier rule of “seeing things vs not seeing things”.
The monument was beautiful, and I was happy I decided to go there. I think the others may have expected just a statue rather than the palatial looking museum that we encountered.
Being a passive traveler can sometimes bite you in the ass, but as I have already stated, you don’t have a lot of say either way, and if you play it passively, you aren’t allowed to complain. Today happened to pay off for me, and I was thankful for that.
We headed back to the hotel, rounded up the now mildly intoxicated rest of the group (bastards!) and piled into two cabs headed to Howrah station for a 26 hour ride to Chennai, a train we nearly missed, running in a panic down the impossibly long length of the train with only a couple of minutes to departure. Everyone did make it though, and now we ride, further and further south, where the temperature already has us back in our shorts.
Next up, a quick stop in Chennai, so quick, it makes the fourth largest city in India barely worth mentioning.
GCIRC Days 9-11: Darjeeling – Welcome to Gorkhaland
We have reached the half way point of our little jaunt around India, and with two days in Darjeeling, everyone is meant to rest up and recharge their batteries. Whether or not that worked out as planned, you would have to ask the others, but from my point of view, everyone seems to have lost a bit of that early pep that we had at the beginning of this trip.
Entry to Darjeeling involved a harrowing (I’m running out of adjectives for crappy car rides, clearly) three hour drive up, up, endlessly up a mountain, driven by a man who was seemingly dead set on winning the award for most hit potholes in a three hour period. We also had to bypass an angry woman standing in the middle of the street, threatening to hurl rocks at people, and occasionally dragging her rock along the sides of the vehicles passing by. She was collecting donations, naturally.
We met her again on the way down, but she had traded her rock in for a big stick.
At this time of year, Darjeeling is very cold, especially at night. There wasn’t room at the posh hotel that several of the early entrants on this journey booked, so Troy, Emily, Steve and KS and I made our way to an uber-cheap hotel closer to the main area of town. Troy and I shared a room, and I was thankful for three great thick blankets that kept us from being forced into a reluctant late night spooning session.
There was no hot water to shower with, but they were happy to bring up a large bucket of intensely hot water, which was glorious to bathe with, but the aftermath of the hot bucket bath was the quick reminder of just how cold it was as you dried yourself off.
Travel Fatigue
Traveling at this pace takes it’s toil on me, and I’ve gotten reasonably good at this by now, so I’m betting that everyone is a bit worn out.
With the group split into two hotels it was hard to organize anything, and when we finally did get a group together I could feel the scattered attention of everyone, their fatigue, it was the same way I felt too. At one point we agreed to split up, and I started going in the direction we had all been walking, after a minute I stopped to see who else was still around.
No one.
And it was sort of fantastic. I continued walking on my own for awhile, not needing to go fast enough to keep up with anyone, not having to stop to look back to make sure we didn’t lose anyone. I wasn’t used to this freedom, and I knew it wouldn’t last very long, so I made a point to take a couple of hours the next day just for myself. It was the best decision I have made in this trip. It’s easy for me to get “peopled out”. I tend to be pretty sensitive to the moods of those around me, so getting to be alone for even two hours was a perfect reset button for me. I hope that everyone who is on this trip got to push their own reset button, wether that meant a long walk on their own or digging in with a bottle of booze. To each his or her own. I’m all for whatever works.
Emily and Bella both left Darjeeling sick, I heard that Steve also was ill for a bit. It might have been the cold, but it may have been the food served to us by a staff of what looked like young teenagers.
The people of Darjeeling were often as cold as the town itself. This does not feel like an Indian town to me, it’s people look, talk, dress and behave differently than any other place I have been thus far. They also feel this difference from the rest of their countrymen, which is why you will find “Gorkhaland” on the majority of business signs. The largely Nepali-Indian hill people in this area want to be recognized as their own state rather than continue to be part of Western Bengal.
There was a real risk of being unable to leave Darjeeling, if a spontaneous workers strike had been called, it would halt all transport up or down the mountain. Three hours before we were set to depart, I heard masses of people chanting. Looking down the hill I could make out dozens of red shirts.
“This does not look good.”
The red shirts turned out to be the red uniforms of a couple thousand high school age girls, rather than the communist unionizers I was dreading. These girls, along with maybe 250 boys coming up behind them, were also calling for Gorkhaland, and had a sign protesting the killing of innocents, something to do with political corruption. I would like to say I took a sharp interest in this, sadly I was merely breathing a sigh of relief that I would be able to get off the mountain in time.
All in all, I would say Darjeeling is a town worth seeing if it is convenient to do so. I enjoyed my time here, seeing unusually gothic architecture, monkeys and dogs fight, watching a monkey nearly attack Troy, seeing thousands of prayer flags at a Hindu Temple, and trying Tibetan bread for the first time (spoiler alert: OM NOM NOM), but my litmus test for wether a place is a must-see is when I consider wether or not I would bring Christine back here so we can share it together. I might be judging it unfairly since it’s currently off season, and truly, there is absolutely nothing like Darjeeling in India from what I have seen, so take my words with a hearty grain of salt; Darjeeling, to me, is for India completists and people who like walking vertically rather than horizontally to get from place to place. I thought it was lovely but don’t feel the burn to return.
Oh, and cow haters. There were no cows to be seen on the mountain. They have the good sense to keep their lives horizontal.
Lifestream
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Shared Taken with instagram.
