The commuting
The place to stay in Kolkata.Amazingly clean, although not green.
Arrival @ Kolkata Train station
The men - Indian style
It may not look it, but this is at 5am after about 5 hours sleep! I'm not going to put the other photo's on - they aren't so complementary.
From Hyderabad to Kolkata is a long approximately 32/36 hours on the train (and I forget which) so we were quite thankful that although we had to arrive at the station by 5:30 to catch the train, we hadn't been bothered by chai / samosa / chocolate / cultet / zip / toy / book / anything else sellers for all of the previous evening, and we had been able to have some solid sleep before the quick rush to the Srik road station.
I have some hilarious photo's of all the members of our group waiting for the train to come...might put some up later.
Anyways, of course, if you're waiting on the train to get off at a station, the train arrives early, or doesn't stop long enough for you to get down at the station, but if you're on the station waiting for it to come, its usually late. And it was.
We scurried aboard, with loads of packs looking very western and finally found our seats.
I wasted no time at all getting the upper berth and trying to snatch some more sleep before EVERYONE was awake on the train and clearing their throats and talking loudly.
The problem was, I knew that Ruth Laben was on the train. So also were Sara Schlagater (sp?) sorry Sara, and Elle, but I'd spent the previous two weeks with Elle and she was from my country. I didn't yet know Sara, but I HAD spent some time with Ruth two years earlier at Manitoulin and we'd been constantly emailing for a short time before I left and i hadn't seen her for TWO years.
So my brain was tossing up, you need to sleep, but you need to see Ruth, you need to get more rest, and Ruth may be sleeping. How rude would it be to wake her up before at least 8 when they've travelled overnight from Hyd and it's their first train trip!!
Ruth solved the dilemma by searching me out in the early hours of the morning!!
Was soo good to catch up with her. We moved to the open doors and began some kind of conversation while we watched the scenery fly past. Not entirely sure what I said, as it was all between fits of coughing (my asthma reaching a peak at this stage) and i think I was zoning from no rest. But then spent the rest of the day flying from one end of the train to the other.
We were S14 and they were S2, so I had a lot of exercise going from one carriage to the other.
Sara finally woke up and I took them some brekky. Nothing exciting... just some juice and some poori. And they had some peanut butter, AND some Indian jam (think flavoured sugar, no fruit) so we made a meal deal out of it. Then I finished off introducing them to India's best biscuits.....HIDE & SEEK.
They had a family with them....maybe several families...far too many children. So after some time, I laid down beside one of their children to read my book. Haven't read a book on a train before...apart from scripture and it was really bizarre how far away you could be from the immediate surroundings. That killed a lot of time and after some time we were there. 6pm on Saturday evening...destination Kolkata.
Of course, Ruth, Sara & Elle thought they were arriving at 5am Sunday morning, so I had to do a last minute dash down the full length of the carriages and tell them we were getting off in 5 and then run back in time to put my pack on my back and get off. (we didn't want to risk that stop not being the terminating one).
The minute we got off....loads of people...crowds of people. Tim and Ness went to find out the information on where the taxi stand was etc.
Some time later, after walking some time round Sudder St, we were all sitting in Flury's, washed, and possibly NEARLY in our right minds.
We were blessed to find an exceptionally CLEAN, 12 month old hotel, for a good rate, and we went to sleep that night feeling thankful to have 2 nights in the hotel and some time to run around before the bible week began.
After too many asthma attacks we headed to a medicals store, and had the loveliest man dose me up on steroids, for then and a good while to come. The breathing ceased to be a problem nearly immediately!
I have some hilarious photo's of all the members of our group waiting for the train to come...might put some up later.
Anyways, of course, if you're waiting on the train to get off at a station, the train arrives early, or doesn't stop long enough for you to get down at the station, but if you're on the station waiting for it to come, its usually late. And it was.
We scurried aboard, with loads of packs looking very western and finally found our seats.
I wasted no time at all getting the upper berth and trying to snatch some more sleep before EVERYONE was awake on the train and clearing their throats and talking loudly.
The problem was, I knew that Ruth Laben was on the train. So also were Sara Schlagater (sp?) sorry Sara, and Elle, but I'd spent the previous two weeks with Elle and she was from my country. I didn't yet know Sara, but I HAD spent some time with Ruth two years earlier at Manitoulin and we'd been constantly emailing for a short time before I left and i hadn't seen her for TWO years.
So my brain was tossing up, you need to sleep, but you need to see Ruth, you need to get more rest, and Ruth may be sleeping. How rude would it be to wake her up before at least 8 when they've travelled overnight from Hyd and it's their first train trip!!
Ruth solved the dilemma by searching me out in the early hours of the morning!!
Was soo good to catch up with her. We moved to the open doors and began some kind of conversation while we watched the scenery fly past. Not entirely sure what I said, as it was all between fits of coughing (my asthma reaching a peak at this stage) and i think I was zoning from no rest. But then spent the rest of the day flying from one end of the train to the other.
We were S14 and they were S2, so I had a lot of exercise going from one carriage to the other.
Sara finally woke up and I took them some brekky. Nothing exciting... just some juice and some poori. And they had some peanut butter, AND some Indian jam (think flavoured sugar, no fruit) so we made a meal deal out of it. Then I finished off introducing them to India's best biscuits.....HIDE & SEEK.
They had a family with them....maybe several families...far too many children. So after some time, I laid down beside one of their children to read my book. Haven't read a book on a train before...apart from scripture and it was really bizarre how far away you could be from the immediate surroundings. That killed a lot of time and after some time we were there. 6pm on Saturday evening...destination Kolkata.
Of course, Ruth, Sara & Elle thought they were arriving at 5am Sunday morning, so I had to do a last minute dash down the full length of the carriages and tell them we were getting off in 5 and then run back in time to put my pack on my back and get off. (we didn't want to risk that stop not being the terminating one).
The minute we got off....loads of people...crowds of people. Tim and Ness went to find out the information on where the taxi stand was etc.
Some time later, after walking some time round Sudder St, we were all sitting in Flury's, washed, and possibly NEARLY in our right minds.
We were blessed to find an exceptionally CLEAN, 12 month old hotel, for a good rate, and we went to sleep that night feeling thankful to have 2 nights in the hotel and some time to run around before the bible week began.
After too many asthma attacks we headed to a medicals store, and had the loveliest man dose me up on steroids, for then and a good while to come. The breathing ceased to be a problem nearly immediately!
posted by Abi Akka @ 1:36 PM
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