Transportation Trauma

As described in the last post, we had to take a flight to get from northern India (Kolkata) to southern India. We could have taken the train, but weren't looking forward to doing so for three consecutive days (India is a big country!) Turns out it may have been a good idea. Here's how the rest of that trip went.

Our flight to Chennai was delayed so we ended up arriving after midnight. Not a big deal...because we have a room booked at a hotel and we phoned back after making the reservation to let them know that we would be arriving late..."no problem...no problem" I'm sure you can see where this is going. So we take a half hour pre-paid taxi ride into the city and low and behold the hotel is full (it is now 1 am). Scott then took to the dark streets checking all hotels in the area - which are all full. Felt a bit like Mary and Joseph. He finally wrangeld a deal at a hotel that actually honoured their reservations and had a room free for someone arriving at 6 am - so we were allowed to stay provided we left at 5am. It was now 2 am. So we had a leisurly 3 hour sleep and then got up and headed out to the train station.

There, we got in line with hundreds of other people to buy a ticket and when we finally got to the front found out that we were in the wrong line up for the express train (not that this is posted anywhere!). That meant we missed the train by a few minutes and had to wait an hour for the next not so express train. Not the end of the world except that the station had thousands of people waiting, only a few chairs and a less than appealing floor. We found a little spot on the floor that was not contaminated by spit or red beetle nut juice and waited it out.

When we bought our ticket, the lady asked if I wanted "reservation", to which I answered "no, not a reservation, we want to leave now." We found out when boarding the train that "reservation" meant a seat that is assigned to you. No reservation is in the cars where hundreds of people pack in as tight as possible onto 2 benches and the rest sit on the floor or roof baggage racks. Of course we realized this after all the masses fought their way to a seat, so we spent the next 6 hours sitting cross legged on the metal baggage racks, which wasn't so bad in the end as we were able to avoid the crush below us. Don't forget we have had 3 hours of sleep and no breakfast. Good times.

Somewhere in here Scott has a minor mental breakdown and decides he's had it with Indian public transport. A picture was taken to capture this emotion.

Remeber there are many many people under our feet. Sorry for the blurr - trains move.

Unfortunately, when we finally got to Bangalore we still had to decifer the local bus system. After sitting on the bus for an hour and then walking twenty min in the hot sun we finally arrivedat"Door of Hope" (a girls home my parents used to work with). The name was quite

apt considering the shape we were in! We arrived feeling absolutely exausted and not too mentally alert. Jocye, at the home took us in like we were her own kids and in a few minutes we were drinking ice cold apple juice and being ushured to a lovely clean bed and a stack of clean towels. Heavenly. We have survived.