I had a great if somewhat unusual Christmas dinner in my posh hotel on the 24th. It included rice and a lovely creamy (yogurty?) dal, mushrooms stuffed with breadcrumbs, and mini veggie burgers. Dessert was a delectable chocolate mousse (it would be rude not to) and fresh fruit - especially pineapple, yum!
My Christmas present turned up at 2am in the shape of Chantal, we had both tried to sleep earlier as well, becuase life then got very busy..! We had an early breakfast and then headed to the station for an 0830 train. This arrived in Jalgaon about 5pm or so, and my original thought had been to stop and take things quietly for a few days in the hotel. However, it turned out to be not as good as the rave review in Lonely Planet (still clean, but prices had tripled since last year, the hot water had stopped working, and the pushy owner was clearly keen to move us on). Plus, the newspapers carry reports that foreigners have been invited to leave Goa by the 28th, the locals are planning a protest against some land reforms. The police are planning to be out in force but I thought I'd wait and see what happens before definitely committing - and the Goa trains are kind of point-of-no-return ones. Sooo... we headed back to the station to book a ticket to Kerala instead. By the time we had done this and had dinner, it was time for bed.
The next morning started early again - 6am wakeup call for a 7am departure in hired car to visit the caves at Ellora. They are amazing, I have a few photos but you can't take much inside (it's very dark) and I don't think any pictures do justice to their real appeal, which is the atmosphere. I'll put up a few next time I have a longish stop somewhere. We dawdled round the first half, then had to sprint past the second batch in order to have time to get to ...
Ajanta! The caves here still have mosaics and paintings remaining from many centuries ago, and again, photos really don't do them justice. It shut at 1730, so we only had time for a quick peek in the most famous caves, then we headed back to Jalgaon for a few hours in bed.
We got up at midnight, a taxi took us to Bushavel (a small town with a whopping railway station, it's on the same line as Jalgaon, but the really fast trains don't stop at the latter). We were well early for our 0210 train, fortunately it was only 5 minutes late. It was all pretty stressful though, because at this stage we were still only waitlisted for the train: no confirmed seats, waiting list positions 2 and 3. Everyone said "get on the train, the conductor will sort you out". We started off waiting in the taxi, but after he got rather close to me, I thought the ladies waiting room would be more comfortable. So at this stage, the taxi had gone home too. Railway waiting rooms are safe but very bright, very noisy (they crank the tannoy up nice and loud), and not great on the vermin front either (Indians will leave food waste all over them).
Anyhow, I was trying not to think of all this and we scrambled on the train with our luggage first, then negotiated after. The conductor was initially firm: no seats available. Eventually he agreed that we could stand until Madgaon (2 hours away), when someone was getting off and seats would come free. We finally crawled into our bunks at 0530. However, we're also covering about half the country at this point: our arrival time was officially 30 hours after we left Bushavel, around 10am the next day. Everyone said to expect an afternoon arrival, because our train is notoriously on Keralan time. In fact, it managed only an hour's delay. So we had 1 and a half nights plus 1 and a bit days on the train, and arrived knackered but safe and sane.
We arrived at Ernakulam this morning and have checked into a hotel next to the station - partly as insurance in case we were late because Cochin/Kochi is a ferry ride away, and partly because the Cochin hotels are all fully booked tonight. However, we have a booking for tomorrow for 3 nights (with some possibility of extension) and have had showers (yay!!!). Now all I need is to wash some clothes (in plan for tomorrow) and I'll feel real again.
The weather is definitely tropical here! Even the nights are warm and the days quite sticky. I've only just spotted in lonely planet that there are no beaches in Cochin (!?) - but there is a swimming pool in town, you can take day trips to the nearby beaches, and if all the hotels are full with a bit of luck we'll find a new year party to go to.
My other looming crisis is that all 4 of my cards (2 debit, 2 credit) have stopped working in ATMs, and I'm down to my last 2000 rupees (about 25 quid). I will phone the bank tonight and plead, failing that I'll either have to find a friend who will take a bank transfer or try Western Union... just how bad are the charges...?
28 Dec 2007
No comments:
Post a Comment