Escape from Mumbai

After spraying loads of insect spray the night before, Joanne only had a few suspected new bedbug bites. This time we were able to enjoy the delights of the Red Shield included breakfast. Terrible! Three bits of white bread, a small banana, and a plate of cold, watery beans. And lunch had been so nice as well. We got chatting to Matthew and Jessica, the couple who had arrived at the guesthouse just after us. They, of course, had bedbugs as well. Their plan was to go to Nepal after a longish stay in India. They had messed it up a bit, they said, because they've discovered that India wasn't exactly their favourite place, but now they were stuck here. How so, we asked. Apparently they were waiting for the “correct” time to go to Nepal, which starts in September, but is primarily October and November, after the monsoon has finished in late August to early September. At this point I despaired. We had originally planned our trip to stay ahead of the monsoon, which is why we were in India after South East Asia, where it hits earlier. We had been plagued by early monsoon in SE Asia, compounded by the fact we kept staying longer than scheduled. And now we were in India, people had told us that Goa has already “shut down” for the monsoon and the rain has started; it's already been raining in Kerala for a few weeks; and now we were learning about the monsoon in Nepal. For some reason I had not thought about monsoon in Nepal at all, perhaps because I thought that being mountainous and away from South West coasts it would escape the South West Monsoon. Our plan had been to head south from Mumbai to Goa, then onto Kerala, before heading northwards, eventually into Nepal. I asked to borrow Matthew and Jessica's Nepal guide and read that the monsoon is generally considered to start mid-June, although the season is considered to run from October to April. I also read that the Anapurna Circuit, which I had intended us to do, takes about three weeks. I hadn't realised it was so long. Maybe I should have done more research! There were some shorter suggested treks, but ten days seemed to be about the shortest of the decent ones. That decided it: we had spent far too long in SE Asia and all the delays had now truly caught up with is. We discussed it and quite quickly came to the conclusion that we should forget about Southern India and head straight for Nepal. We could see Northern India in the rain when we returned, but trekking in the rain in Nepal would not be fun (the leeches are awful apparently), and Nepal was one of my “must do” places when we were first planning our route.

Cricket on the way to the station

So that decided it: get a train to Gorakhpur for Nepal, according to the Trains at a Glance book belonging to the Red Shield, and get out of Mumbai as soon as possible. The booking office wasn't too far away, so we walked, getting constantly harassed to take rickshaws, buy hashish, buy milk for baby brother, as we breathed in the air thick with pollution. We eventually found the booking office, where the queues were a bit difficult to understand. At one end we noticed a counter for foreigners to buy an Indrail Pass, which we didn't want to do, so Joanne stood in that queue while I stood in the information queue. There was quite a bit of jostling but I got to the front, where I was told that the train we wanted for Gorakhpur via Lucknow was full “because of the holiday”.

Indian bureaucracy at the ticket office

Or was it just the foreigners' quota that was full? I couldn't quite understand because, having not quite yet tuned into Indlish, I couldn't really follow with all the background noise everyone else seemed to feel compelled to produce so much of. The next train she could offer us was in three days and there was no way we were staying in Mumbai that long. I gave up and joined Joanne in her queue, where she was speaking to a guy from Brazil who told her how unhappy he feels in India because it seems so dangerous. There are plenty of things to dislike India for, but being dangerous I think would be near the bottom of my list, and this guy was from Brazil, for goodness' sake! We got to the front of the queue and discovered it's not just for Indrail passes. Apparently the school holiday is on, so the trains are very busy. She was unable to find any route to Gorahkpur leaving in the next two days, so we thought on our feet and tried via Agra instead of Lucknow. Yes she could get us a ticket to Agra tomorrow, but we couldn't travel onwards for a couple of days. Brilliant! OK, so this would get us to Nepal no earlier, but at least we'd be stuck in Agra with the Taj Mahal, instead of in Mumbai with the high prices, the filth, the poverty, and the harassment. We weren't sure what class to book but Matthew and Jessica had told us that it's worth splashing out on Second Class A/C because you get a lockable compartment to yourselves so the security is much better. We had heard some really good things about Indian trains, but security is a concern, so we asked about 2nd Class A/C and it was much dearer than we'd been expecting. We didn't really want to be frozen half to death by the aircon, so we asked about ordinary Sleeper Class, and was it just the same, just as secure, but without the aircon. Yes, yes, just the same she assured us, and at about a third the cost we were very happy with the price too.

Indian traffic genius on way back from ticket office

When we got back Joanne had to lie down with a sore back, probably from standing so long in the queue at the booking office, but maybe from all the standing around doing our “passing” work the day before. I headed out to take the photo, passport copies, visa copies, and hotel receipt to the SIM card kiosk who had phoned to nag again. I decided to check out another of the drinking places nearby as I was curious; Mumbai seems to have more places to drink than I remembered Delhi having from my last visit, or maybe Indian culture was changing. It was ostensibly a food place, but it was the usual drab Indian place, set up like a cafe, with no atmosphere. Men (only) were sitting around, not speaking to their companions and drinking sullenly. Again I was the only white there. At the table next to me I watched an incredible display of what in Britain we would these days call binge drinking. Two mean sat opposite each other and they literally did not say a single word the whole time. They each had an empty and a half-full “peg” of whisky, which is about a quarter bottle, which they seemed to be drinking with coke. They also had a whole bottle of vodka which was about two-thirds full when I sat down. In the space of no more than twenty minutes the whole lot was gone. The vodka was the most incredible; Indians sharing water do not put their mouths to the bottle or jugs: instead they just pour it in from above their mouths. One of the two guys was doing this with the vodka: pouring a large mouthful in then putting it back on the table then, as he was swilling it around his mouth and swallowing it, his friend was pouring a large amount into an empty glass and downing it. Then the first one would take another large mouthful. They repeated this until the vodka was gone, at which point they got to their feet and left, in a bit of a hurry I thought, perhaps hoping to get home before they blacked out, or just outside before they puked! While all that was going on, the atmosphere in the place had actually lifted because the first election results had started coming in and there was a bit of a buzz; and I had ordered a very nice masala papad to go with several Indian whiskies, working my way down the list in the hope of finding a palatable one. I tried four and they were all terrible. I decided to keep a note, giving them a mark out of ten, in case I ordered one of them again in the future. Haywards Fine got 0, Officer's Choice got 1 as did Bagpiper, then the champion, Green Label got a fabulous 2 out of 10. I suspected there might be a bias as the score seemed to be increasing with alcohol consumed, but I did start with the cheapest as well, and surely four units wouldn't cloud my judgement too much!

Cheery Indian drinking den

After unsuccessfully trying to change to a cleaner room, get the hostel to pay for our laundry or show any kind of contrition for the terrible state of Joanne's skin, we gave up and sprayed more chemicals around our room, deciding instead to write a comment on the “India Mike” website, from where the glowing recommendations for this hovel had come. When we checked out and paid the next morning, the horrible concierge just said “show downstairs” when he handed us the receipt; no smile, no thank you, no sorry about the disgusting state of the place. The guy downstairs on the door was actually quite friendly and managed a smile. Outside we were crowded by taxi drivers, but they were all really greedy. We were now certain the fare could be no more than Rs20 as the station we were going to was much closer than the one we knew the fare to be Rs20 to; maybe Rs25 including a charge for the luggage. Nobody would go lower that Rs80, and most realising that we were getting a local train, wanted to take us all the way to the main train station instead for Rs250. In the end we just said “you're all greedy!” and walked. The train was only Rs12, meaning that we'd already saved over Rs300 by the time we got to the main train station, with an hour still to spare before our train for Agra departed.

It turned out that the woman at the ticket office had been talking nonsense: the compartment was not lockable and there seemed to be half again as many people on our carriage than there were seats for. So much for reserved seating! On the train we phoned ahead to book Shanti Lodge, which is place I thought might be one I remembered from my last day visit to Agra, which had an incredible view of the Taj Mahal from its rooftop restaurant. I remembered it looked like it might be an OK place to stay too and the food wasn't too dear. On that journey we learned quite a bit about Indian culture: people sneaking onto the section they're not allowed, one friend buying a more expensive seat so the rest can share with him, and the litter. Most of them sat the whole time eating snacks then, as soon as they are finished, the wrapper goes straight out the train window. It doesn't matter if you're in a station on in the countryside; it doesn't matter if it's paper or plastic; it doesn't matter if it's just a little sweet wrapper or a whole plastic bag full of rubbish: just chuck it out. When one guy noticed that Joanne and I were keeping our empty plastic water bottles, he indicated the open window with a confused look on his face. “Just throw it” someone else said, then another “why are you keeping that?”. They actually laughed at us for not littering. We didn't reply, but really I should have said “because we don't want to contribute to this country being any more disgusting than it already is; don't you mind that your country looks horrible and filthy, and smells disgusting?”. These were not children; these were not rebellious teenagers; these were normal, apparently moderately wealthy families and businessmen, I'd guess. The more I get to know India, though, the more it occurs to me that they do behave like children; Matthew had offered the explanation for the “Eve teasing” as sexual immaturity in Indian men caused by keeping the sexes so separate as they grow up, so that even grown men have the sexual maturity of teenagers; now it seems like they act as if some parent will pick up their rubbish after them too. At least we learned why the country is so filthy. Some people did get off before it came to sleeping time, but when the seats converted into beds, there were still some people sharing and a person sleeping in aisle between the bottom berths. This made me a bit nervous about our belongings, but I reckoned since I was on the bottom berth I'd be able to keep half an eye on the bags below my bed / seat. All night people swapped seats for floor and vice-versa, presumably some sharing pact, but it didn't do much for our relaxation or quality of sleep.

written by

The Happy Couple on May 23, 2009 from Mumbai, India

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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