My Year of Living Draftily

My Inner Beach Bum

I'm so not a fan of Goa. I'm one of those travel snobs, particularly in India, that sees Goa as the place where people go when they have no real intention to visit "India", they just want a cheap vacay on the beach. Or a place they can afford to stay/drink/smoke on the beach for months at a time. The slightly more adventurous may make the epic eight hour train trip to Hampi - their taste of 'real' India - for a few days, which is laudable except that a few of them seem to not realize they're in a very different place than Goa and assume the same wardrobe and behaviour is acceptable (it's not).

After four days in Benaulim, I was cured of such pretensions. Almost. Somewhat.

It was actually my second time in Benaulim. This is remarkable only because of the now 16 months I've spent in India (since 2006), only nine days have now been on a Goan beach. On my first visit to India in 2006 with my friend Andrew, we had a two-day beach visit to Benaulim because it was the easiest one to get to from the main Goan train station, Margao. It was a beachy stopover on our way to other places.

It's mainly why I chose it again this time. Having been trapped in Hampi by unseen forces for so long, I found my options for what to do with the rest of my time in India (two weeks - nothing!!) disturbingly limited. I decided it would be ill-advised to return to a Canadian - even Victorian - winter without having taken advantage of my proximity to a hot sunny beach, so a few days in Goa were required.

Benaulim is also a much quieter, less 'sceney' beach that pretty much all the others. It was very quiet when I was here in April 2006, but that was the very tail-end of the season. Mid-January is high season, yet it's still got a remarkably low-key feel.

I arrive late in the afternoon and manage to get myself to a table in front of one of several beach shacks in the heart of Benaulim beach in time for sunset. Traditional large wooden outrigger canoes are lined up along the beach, as are a few jet skis awaiting rental by tourists - the local fishing community co-exists with the foreign tourist amenities. I hear the roar of a motor and a parachute takes off just down the beach, four legs dangling helplessly as they're dragged in front of the setting sun, adding a point of interest to the standard sunset shot.

Also livening up my yet-another-Indian-sunset experience is the G&T in front of me. I rarely ever drink alcohol in India. Especially as a woman traveling alone and in the places I tend to go, seeking out a drink is either uncomfortable (sections of non-veg restaurants packed out with men drinking heavily who seem to find my presence intensely interesting, even if I'm just there for the chicken masala nevermind a beer) or expensive (higher-end hotels, though generally more comfortable). But in Goa alcohol is ubiquitous and acceptable, for better or worse. As the sun dipped into the hazy sea in front of me, the (filtered-water) ice cubes cooling my drink nicely, I was very appreciative of this rare treat in such a beautiful spot.

For the next four days I planted myself at the "Seafood Shack" a couple of 'beaches' south from the main Benaulim beach. Though how they officially partition what is in reality several kilometers of palm-lined, white-sand beach, remarkably unbroken by hotels or restort developments, remains a mystery to me.  The shacks that cluster at various intervals seem very similar - wooden sunbeds with comfy mattresses under umbrellas or palapas (fixed palm frond shades) that are yours for free, towel included (!), with the expectation that you'll partake of their menu offerings. And really, what's a lounge on tropical beach without a cool fresh pineapple juice delivered to you when you need it most? Or a big fruit salad with a generous portion of mango to start your beach day right? Or a tasty fried rice with spicey Goan sausage (pork!) for a late lunch in the shade when the sun is at its hottest? Or, what the heck, that sunset was spectacular (again), it's already dark, I may as well stay for a tandoori chicken dinner with a cold beer. In front of the beach fire. And impromptu fire spinning. I brought my headlamp for the bike ride home, didn't I...?

Rinse and repeat, x 4.

I could start to see how some folks get stuck in places like this for a week or two, or six (I'm looking out you, Michele). Throw in some yoga, a few spontaneous social connections that always form in traveller areas, and you're done.

Perhaps one of the added benefits of Benaulim, though, is the built-in wake-up call. As I mentioned, it's not a sceney, party beach, no raves, nary a dreadlock in sight. It's popular with older Brits and Germans, many on packages, as well as lots (lots!) of Russians of various ages. So I was almost always within sight of someone who has spent many, many such vacations on many, many such beaches. Their well-tanned, leathery hides were a constant reminder that my temperate-zone-conditioned Canadian skin is probably not nearly so happy in this tropical onslaught as the rest of me, SPF 55 be damned.

So I kept to my plans to head for the cooler hills of Kodagu region, and even cooler Delhi after that. But I will return home with tanlines, especially after a quick top-up at a rooftop pool in Bangkok, my secret weapon against the final chills of a Victorian winter!

That and a big bottle of extra-strength body lotion.

Miss Manners Does India

“Don’t call it ‘party’.”

“How about a ‘spiritual ceremony to welcome in the new year’?”

We all laugh. A number of us are discussing plans for new year’s eve with the manager of our guesthouse. It’s pretty tame – dinner here, look at the colourful rangolis that will begin to adorn the streets around 8 or 9pm, reconvene for cake later in the evening, maybe be in the restaurant until 12:30 or 1am. Will the police allow the restaurant to be open that late? Sounds likely, but we don’t want to risk their wrath with rash talk of “party”.

Hampi has an image problem. It’s been more than 20 years in the making, and much of the bad behaviour that created it is no longer a central feature of the Hampi experience today. But bad reps die hard.

Whose bad behaviour? For the most part, ours, foreign tourists.

Wrath of God

In digging into the details of the Hampi crisis that has already put more than 200 families on the street and threatens many more, I’ve spent some time reading the 2009 court petition by several local and state religious leaders that seems to have led to the destruction of Hampi bazaar in July of this year, and is driving continued efforts by the authorities to implement the Hampi ‘master plan’.

The case was the culmination of efforts by these religious leaders going back at least to the early 1990s. While the 2009 case itself focuses on the “illegal and unauthorized construction in the Hampi World Heritage Area,” most of their protests, letters to government and threats of hunger strikes amassed over the previous 15 years were far more concerned with preventing the “attack on our culture and heritage by foreign visitors [due to their] free luxurious life style….”

“Today, both sacredness and historical significance of Hampi are under great threat. Hampi, which was the place of worship, has become the land of luxury of semi-nude, thousands of men and women foreigners under the guise of tourism, under alcoholic impact and other bad habits…”

“Everyone can see and hear about the obscene at the bank of the River Tungabhadra, on mountains, in the gaps of hills during full moon nights! The scene of movement of male and female hugging each other during the day time is not meagre.”

“Seeing these red bare bodies of these foreigners has been pleasure to our youth. Bunking college, High schools, these boys come to Hampi only to see the foreigners at this place. It is not that there are no well mannered foreigners who visit this place, but our boys don’t spare even them.”

“Here [in the Hampi colony], music would be played continuously. There would always be noise of Beer and whiskey bottles. The foreign music such as “Everything I do it for you” dominate here. Nude midnight films are telecasted in the Restaurant televisions.”

Oh Bryan Adams, you’re a bad, bad man. Who knew.

While it might be easy to poke fun at the language and seemingly exaggerated fears (though it helps to know that “nude” and “semi-nude” here refer to bikinis and flimsy, revealing clothing, and “hugging” in this context refers to sex) the threats claimed are taken very seriously in India. This is especially true when talking about a sacred place like Hampi.

Religious leaders have been beating this drum for many years, resulting in strict enforcement of no alcohol and no meat rules in Hampi itself, and a curfew that effectively negates any attempt at organizing a ‘full moon party’, at least on this side.

Restrictions aren’t so strict in Virupapurgadde, a short boat ride away, so tourists looking to replicate some of the Goan hippy scene largely congregate there. But even it’s but a shadow of its hard-partying ‘90s self. Drug sale and use was a big concern throughout this period, but again, strict enforcement has made it much more limited. (Though I was recently personally offended to find out a fellow traveler has been offered hash three times in her few walks by the river (declined) yet I’ve never been targeted. What gives?)

Despite the significant reduction in the tourist party scene, the pressure remains to remove the guesthouses and restaurants that effectively attract and facilitate the “hippies” and other “anti-social elements.” It’s not clear if they’re aware of the degree to which Hampi has been reformed, or if they were so thoroughly outraged at the “moral pollution” that has been wrought on Hampi nothing but a complete cleansing will satisfy them.

There are other forces at work here as well, of course: there is a move throughout India to enforce better protection for historic monuments, including greater restrictions on commercial activities nearby. And much of Hampi’s and Virupapurgadde’s development has been unauthorized. But I can’t help but feel that the sentiments laid out in the court case underlie the righteous vigour of the authorities’ actions, and the disdain with which they deal with the business operators. The criticisms have clearly gained Hampi some very powerful enemies.

Bad habits are hard to break

The thing is, if one of the revered swamis named in the petition were to walk the streets of Hampi today, during the day, I don’t know how mollified they’d feel. Lord Shiva knows I cringe daily at the travelers’ fashion paraded before me, and it’s not just the clashing colours and prints.

Just on my way to a café to write this post I passed a young woman in a very light-weight cotton tank top, obviously (obviously!) bra-less. You wouldn’t see someone walking around like that at home – maybe you would in Israel/France/Russia? – but it’s so obviously (obviously!) inappropriate in India that…that…I’m speechless. I want to go up and shake her and ask does she not understand where she is?? But then I’m afraid a breast would fall out and make it all worse. So I have to content myself with a disapproving look and a feeling of smugness that my skirt is well below my knees and my T-shirt is demurely cut.

But events in Hampi in recent months indicate that my disapproving looks, however stabbing, and my smugness, however self-satisfying, aren’t enough.

When I first arrived in Hampi back in 2006, one of the first things I noticed about this charming little village was a sign near the entrance to the guesthouse area directed at foreign tourists: “don’t litter, don’t give money to children, dress respectfully.” It was an initiative of local guesthouse operators, responding to local concerns about the impact of foreigners on the moral well-being of this sacred place (the ‘don’t litter’ part is a bit rich here in India, but good advice for everyone). It’s disappeared now, but the sign in the photo at the top of this post hangs in a friend’s guesthouse in Virupapurgadde, seemingly to little effect: he pointed it out to me as we were discussing – hopefully loud enough to be heard – the shockingly short shorts being worn by a Spanish tourist at his guesthouse with an unfortunate penchant for bending over. His problem: how do you tell your customer they’re inappropriately dressed, especially with language barriers often thrown in?

What usually happens is that nothing is said to the tourists, and those of us conscious of the message our attire sends are satisfied with our silent disapproval. But the local business operators that serve the foreign tourists bear the brunt of local disapproval, for everything from our inappropriate dress sense to our careless partying, even to our poor hygiene.

(“Hippies” have a bad rap in much of India, even in the places where they dominate the tourist scene, for being “dirty”, spreading bed bugs and doing drugs. Even if you’re none of those things if you present as such, you’re in that category. And Indians can’t fathom why ‘rich’ foreigners would choose to dress in ripped/tattered/dirty clothing.)

Hampi has become a perhaps extreme example of what can happen when those cumulative transgressions reach some sort of breaking point. Where that point is differs from place to place, of course – Hampi is not anything-goes Goa, though even there I’m sure many of the locals are unimpressed with foreigners’ behaviour but tolerate it in beach areas and non-sacred sites for the revenue generated.

So it’s hard to generalize rules that apply everywhere, but for the most part it’s not rocket science. The less skin the better, especially when it comes to legs and necklines. (And yes, this applies mainly to women: this isn’t fair, this is India.) While the range of fashion for Indian women is broadening from traditional to rapidly westernizing, especially in larger cities, and you’re likely to see more tank tops and more fitted clothing, you’re highly unlikely to see deep necklines and lots of leg.

The swamis are right that, for the most part, we foreign tourists come from places where we live relatively “free and luxurious life styles.” In the context of the cultures we live in those lifestyles are probably appropriate. But the point of travel should not be to impose my lifestyle choices from home onto a place where I’m a guest. Surely it’s not that much of a hardship to cover up a bit more skin than I would at home, to restrict my partying to those places (and to those degrees) where it really is okay, and to not look like I rescued a chunk of my wardrobe from the trash. In the ‘70s.

Most importantly, I’d like to bring with me enough curiosity to want to understand the cultural significance of the places I visit. It makes my travel much more interesting, and allows me to better calibrate how I show up and how I minimize my potential impact on the place and the people. I’m not above asking a guesthouse operator: “Is this okay to wear? No really, tell me.”

Einstein taught us that the impact of the observer on the observed is not neutral. Our presence brings lots of benefits for local economies, but it is incumbent upon travelers to ensure our negative impacts don’t ultimately make use unwelcome.

Hampi 2011: Last Chance to See?

Someone is sweeping the dirt road and uneven stone slabs outside my window, one floor below. There’s a lawnmower rev of a rickshaw, a buzzer-like horn. A cow bellows a complaint. Pooja bells tinkle, the low drone of repeated mantras emerges from the Brahmin house next door. Children shout, mother calls back. A monkey screeches at another in the tree beside the guesthouse.

The day is well underway, I should join it.

I pull on some comfy clothes and head to the roof in the half-light for my self-directed yoga session. I’m early enough during this solstice period to greet the rising red ball of fire with my sun salutations as it just peeks over Matanga Hill.

Yoga done, I can still make it to the river in time to see Lakshmi the temple elephant being bathed, to the delight of several clicking tourist cameras. The ghats by the river are very busy these days, with many Indian tourists, pilgrims and school children here for their winter holidays. They sleep in the temple, mantapas or their school bus and go to the river, toothbrush and soap in hand, to do their morning ablutions en masse.

After breakfast at a rooftop restaurant with a front row view of the imposing Virupaksha temple gopura, I can spend the day wandering the ruin-strewn surroundings, with its massive rounded boulders and myriad caves that house ad hoc temples or sadhus that have renounced the world to live out their lives in meditation. Or I can sit in a shaded restaurant and read the newspapers or my book, do a bit of writing, manage my photos. I may see the sun out for the day on Hemakuta Hill, just one more time.

I can spend, and have spent, a lot of time in Hampi. It’s my favourite place in the world in which to do virtually nothing, for those times in life when nothing is what you need to do.

Yet this time, I know it may be my last, at least in this form; all of this is coloured with a tinge of sadness.

Must-See TV

Since the dance party cranked up across the hall at around 6:30am, I decided to watch some early morning news on my only morning in Bangalore. But my clicking stopped dead at the History channel.

“After three accidents in one day, [American Ice-Road Trucker X] decides to call it quits after his first day.”

“This is insane,” says X.

I’ve come in late, but from what I piece together the North American reality TV phenomenon “Ice-Road Truckers” has decided to (literally) take it on the road to pit their drivers against some of the world’s most dangerous roads. This episode is the start of their India attempt: because how could you do “IRT: Deadliest Roads” without coming to India, ice or no ice?

The premise is that four drivers are each assigned a colourful Indian “Goods Carrier” truck and they have to pilot it, loaded, from Delhi to a dam-building project way up in the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh and back.

As someone who has been on all those roads, or regional variations thereof, it’s all fun. The Delhi portions are all about having to share the road with…anything that moves. At a long stop for a train crossing, the driver watches in horror as a similar truck on the other side of the track is surrounded by dozens of bikes and rickshaws all jockeying for position for when the barrier is raised (“They just swarmed him, like ants on a doughnut!”). The first guy doesn’t even make it out of the city.

The HP part is all hairpin turns, narrow, virtually single-lane roads (with two-way traffic, of course), and 3,000 foot drop-offs awaiting the slightest mistake. Having been up and down (and up and down and up and…) those roads and others like them in jeeps and buses, I can’t imagine having to drive them. I’d usually find myself a seat where I couldn’t really see what’s in front of us, even if my eyes were open.

A great watch if you’re an IRT fan, or India traveler, or both. It looks like it first aired back in 2010, but in case you missed it, worth tracking down.

India v. 3.0: Same same but different

“197 rupees!? Are you crazy?!”

As I feel my anger rise quickly to a boil, I know I’m back in India. The taxi driver looks worried at my protest, points lamely at the meter.

The meter. Four drivers had converged on me not far from the movie theatre I’d just left in South Mumbai, and I’d chosen the one with a new digital meter. Rigged taxi and rickshaw meters have blown up into a huge issue here in Mumbai and there’s a battle raging between the drivers and the transport authorities, one I’ve read about daily in the papers since I got here. I’d been led to believe that the new digital meters were less ‘tamperable’ than the old (really old – think New York taxis in 1950s movies) mechanical ones. But I was now staring at the evidence that this is not true.

“We’ll just see if that’s the right fare,” I declare as imperiously as I can, getting out of the car to fetch a third party from the reception desk at the New Bengal Hotel, my new Mumbai home away from home. The driver doesn't seem to speak much English, but he knows what I’m doing. “100 rupees, give me 100 only,” he sputters nervously.

“Wait here,” I say as I march off. I think those who know me would agree that I’m not one with a quick temper, I’m more of a slow burn type. But there’s something about my repeated interactions with Indian rickshaw and taxi drivers that has now deeply worn a neural pathway that takes me from zen to blow up in about three seconds. There are very few other situations in my life where this happens.

Goodbye India. For now.

With only a few days left in India, I find myself a muddled mass of mixed emotions. On the one hand, my excitement has been slowly building over the last three weeks or so about the prospect of being home. Seeing friends and family is the big attraction, of course: while email, Facebook, Skype and even cellphone have all been fabulous tools to keep the traveler in touch with home base, the electronic world can't yet replace the energy and joy generated in a face-to-face gabfest. Especially if you add wine.

Reconnecting with my lovely little house also gives me butterflies. I've bought it lots of gifts that I can't wait to retreive from boxes that have floated halfway across the planet and await me at home. Not to mention all those I'm carrying with me. I foresee some strained conversations with airline staff in my near future.

My garden! I'm really really hoping something is blooming, though will settle for cherry blossoms on boulevard trees. I think digging my hands into the soil will be very satisfying. Unless it's a big mudbath right now - will have to check conditions before ticking this box.

As much as I'm looking forward to some key comfort foods of home - spinach salad with my own homemade dressing, brunch at Demitasse, Arlene's famous BBQ chicken, butter tarts - I think I'm looking forward even more to cooking. Not because I'm such an avid or even a good cook. I think it's more about regaining some control over what I'm putting in my body. Everything from portion size to intensity of spices to just knowing the standard of hygiene in the kitchen - none of that has been in my control for a year. I've fared remarkably, some say miraculously, well health-wise despite this (thank you, Ducoral - don't leave home without it!), but having access to a refrigerator and knowing the provenance of most everything in it will be a luxury.

But there's lots I will miss of India. To start with, the rock star treatment I get in India. I know it's not for the right reasons - skin colour, assumptions about wealth and status, men's obsession with sex and their assumptions about Western women, etc. - but it still feels damn good to know my mere passing is a screech-worthy event for children throughout the subcontinent, outside of major urban areas. By contrast I head home to a society where, as a short, forty-something female I'm virtually invisible; I sometimes think I'm at greater risk of being hit in traffic in Victoria than I am in India.

Udaipur Photo Tour

[October 31-November 4] Arriving in Udaipur, in southern Rajasthan, one morning early off an overnight train it felt like I'd woken up in a different India. It wasn't just that the streets were teeming with tourists - this was my first foray into Rajasthan and while I'd known there'd be more tourists, I hadn't quite realized the degree of contrast with much less touristy Gujarat, where I'd just come from.

And it wasn't just the profusion of onion domes and  scalloped archways and white and ocher washes that crowded into the skyline view from atop my guesthouse ("Highest rooftop restaurant in Udaipur!"), becoming almost a caricature of an 'exotic' Indian city, a caricature of itself. A city doesn't get to be a James Bond movie locale ("Octopussy") without being a little over the top.

As I wandered through the grand City Palace complex, comprising several different palaces now museums and restaurants and guesthouses and, yes, even a residential palace for the current Raja's family, I got this strange feeling that "I don't belong here." It was the first time I had felt this in India. It's not a feeling I get in many places, I'm a pretty comfortable tourist most everywhere I go. The one other place that produced this feeling in me, and so strongly, was many years ago in Monaco. It's ostentatious display of wealth - rows of designer boutiques, yachts in the harbour, fast sports cars careening around the twisty roads, and the beautiful people to go with it all - made me the Euro-backpacker feel distinctly out of place, tatty, unkempt, low-budget and unwanted for it.

On that first day's wander with Jez, a fellow-traveler from Britain I'd met in the train station that morning, I took in the well-maintained palaces, the manicured lawns, the tasteful terrace restaurants with uniformed waiters, the valets at the boat launch waiting to whisk the well-heeled tourists to their rooms in the Palace Hotel out in the middle of glistening Lake Pichola, and it felt like this wasn't a city that wanted to cater to a mere backpacker like me. I felt out of place.

But as we continued to poke about, Udaipur's multiple charms worked their magic on me, making itself irresistible. Each cityscape and intricate detail was more beautiful than the last, until it was all so sweetly pretty you thought your teeth were going to rot right out of your mouth. I was aided by the enthusiasm of Jez, who'd been struggling to like India in the short time he'd had to get to know it, and found in Udaipur a reason to like it and to want to come back to India.

I also did find Udaipur welcoming to the full range of travelers, once I got past the glossy sheen. My $5/night room in a lovely old building gave me dawn access to what really did seem to be the highest rooftop restaurant in the city.

And Octopussy showing every night, just for those of us who may have missed it in the James Bond pantheon (guilty!). What's not to love!

A short photo tour of Udaipur for a vicarious taste of the quintessential exotic India.

Fringe Fright

[January 9] It's not my fault (a favourite defense here in India, I've discovered). I was desperate. I hadn't had my hair cut since August in Bangkok, and my shaggy English sheepdog look had progressed (digressed?) from a somewhat endearing travelers' unkemptness to just plain embarrassing. I'd been advised to stay away from the scissor-wielders in Hampi (local advice, no less), so a haircut was top of my list when I got to Kochi, in Kerala.

Lo and behold, a Ladies' Beauty Saloon (no, no beer, that just seems to be the conventional spelling in India and Sri Lanka) beckoned me across the road from the hotel I'd found in Fort Cochin. A clean establishment in a nicely maintained house, it looked like a safe, professional bet. Couldn't do worse than a German woman who offered to cut my hair in Dharamsala who claimed she was a hairdresser at home yet gave me one of the most random - that's the only word I can think to describe it - haircuts I've ever had.

The Rs80 (C$2) quoted sent up a caution flag, but then I'd only paid $5 in Bangkok and that trim was...okay. Haircuts are generally a dodgy affair when traveling, and I only had 6 weeks to go in my trip anyways, so all I was really seeking was...okay. 

No washing was involved, just spritzing the ends before they were trimmed off. The back was 'shaped' with some care, and some layers snipped with less attention, but close enough. They're layers. She seemed less sure what to do about the bangs - they were long enough that it probably wasn't clear where they 'should' be.

Her English was minimal and my Malayalam non-existent so I used my fingers to demonstrate that they needed to be much shorter, up around my eyebrows. She grabbed another chunk at about the same place and I nodded yes, yes, thinking we were still just establishing the concept of "shorter". But she meant business. Snip! I was a little surprised - I hadn't assessed to see if that was exactly the right length and bangs need some precision. An attempt at getting her to graduate the sides into the longer part of my hair resulted in a slightly longer chunk...oh no...

I stopped the proceedings right around then. At least I could see now, even if I wasn't so keen on what I could see now in the mirror. I look like I cut my bangs myself. I look like I'm 8 and cut my bangs myself. But I maintained my equanimity - everything changes, hair grows, oneeche, oneeche (see my Vipassana post) - and paid the Rs80 with a smile and namaste.

And asked a friend to make an appointment with my hairdresser at home for the morning after I land. Just don't tell him I paid $2 for a haircut! Though I'm sure he'll be able to tell.

Happy New Year in Hampi

Okay, I'm way behind in getting my photos processed on the computer, and even moreso to get them uploaded on the blog. So clinging desperately to the "better late than never" theory, I offer for you here some photos of how New Year's is celebrated in much of small town India - rangoli art!

I was still in my 'homebase' of Hampi at New Year's, having got here for Christmas a week earlier. Was so lovely to be back in south India!

At around 8pm on New Years Eve the women started gathering in front of their homes in the small village, and setting out grids of tiny dots with rice flour poured from clenched fists. This was to be their pattern grid. The street had been painted earlier in the day with what looked, to some other tourists and I, to be a mixture of cow dung and water. We checked with a local, and yes, that's exactly what it was. It apparently provides a more uniform and opaque background against which the colours of the rangolis show up better.

Using the dots and generally a pattern sketched out on paper, the women and girls drew beautiful, complex designs and then filled them in with colourful sands. By 10pm the street was a veritable art gallery, with various barriers like bikes erected to try to keep the cows away from trampling them at least for a few hours. Most were getting blurred by foot and hoof traffic by morning. Like some of life's best art, so ephemeral and you have to make the most of the moment you come across it!

I've put together a small album of the best of the ones I came across - enjoy!

Indian trains: “Pardon me, boy, is that the Chhatrapathi choo-choo…”

It was one of those “Indian train” moments. I’d been waiting hours for this train, and it was to arrive in about 15 minutes. I retrieved my bag from the cloakroom – great for ditching your pack when you don’t want to lug it around for hours – and was heading over the footbridge to the platform when I noticed the distinctive colours of the Rajdhani high speed train already there. According to the electronic notice board in the main terminal it wasn’t supposed to leave for another 10 minutes, which would make it about 20 minutes late. As I was heading down the stairs, though, I heard the conductor’s whistle blow and the train began to move.

I ran down the last few steps and up to the edge of the platform, trying to focus on the part of the coaches where I knew the train’s number should be. Sure enough, 2951 (up)/2952 (down) Mumbai Rajdhani Express.

With no time to really think it through I reached up for the handrail beside the next open door passing me, got one foot, two feet on the bottom step, and managed to latch my left hand onto the other rail. As the train gathered speed I heaved myself up one more step but I’d have to let go of the handrails to step inside the coach, a dodgy proposition with 17kg dragging me backwards and another 7kg on my front. The train was now at a speed where aborting this operation was no longer an option.