A very Indian romance

So there we were waiting to embark on this romantic of journeys. I knew things were going to be a lot less romantic as the massive, shiny, digital, super-zoom cameras appeared with there owners. (The hairiest man in the world has just sat down next to me. Just to help me capture some more of this beauty as I write!) The owners being pasty white Europeans who for the love of an early grave saw it fit to chain smoke the hour away till the train departed. But of course we have the Indian tourists too. Entire families, with two bags a piece, screaming, pointing and gesticulating in a manner wholly unique to this fine nation's natives. So between the noise and the thick stench of cigarettes romance was at the forefront of everyone's mind.

This little train had three carriages, each with four compartments holding ten people each. The first carriage being for first class and reserved tickets. Luckily, we hadn't booked online and had unreserved tickets. Cause all the chain smoking shiny cameras piled in there. I thought we'd totally lucked out and got one of these 10 seater berths to ourselves. Right up till the whistle blew then three Indian railway employees piled in with us. Three hot blondes would've helped up my romantic mood, these were not! So our little steam engine attaches at the back and of we pop.

At this point I am far away from a whimsical journey of fantasy and adventure but I'm still ready to give it the benefit of the doubt. I should explain that this train uses a rack and pinion system to get it up the steep parts. It's quite special and isn't used much anymore or so I'm led to believe. There is probably a good reason for that, which I'm all too aware off now. The reason being, rather than smoothly going along like you'd expect a train to, every time it catches on the rack it jolts the entire carriage section.

Everybody's sat on a flight or bus and had some plonker that occasionally bumped your seat. Mildly annoying I'm sure you'd all agree. Well this was like having a hyper-active 10 year old taking a run up and fly kicking the back of your seat. Every couple of seconds. Jolt, jolt, jolt, jolt! You couldn't settle into any sort of relaxed position to enjoy the scenery. If governments of this world need a new way to get info out of people stick them on this train. I was ready to get off about half an hour in, within an hour i would have admitted to being the single mind behind all of histories murders, genocides and upcoming atrocities. Believe me when i say it was that irritable.

Now our traveling companions, being Indians, were no strangers to discomfort. Therefore, they fell asleep pretty quickly. Taking up 8 spaces between them and squishing us into the corner. Now having slept on a platform I was able to get a wee doze on. Lucky for me I was grabbed on the thigh and almost pushed out by these Indian's at our first water refill (train and passengers). So out the train I got. Slumber broken, I now had to dodge small monkeys, the smokersnappersaurous of the European genus and the ever energetic Indian families. Alice in Wonderland I was not. But all too soon it was back on the jack hammer driven train and off again.

No elephants. Another thing that we were told was quite likely. The journey continued like this for a couple of hours till we reached the mid-point of Coonoor. Here it was all change. Our little engine was removed from the carriages and a big old reliable diesel spewing beast was brought forth. Here's me pondering why that would be. Well I can tell you it was because they were now going to fill the train with lots of extra bodies. The second section of this journey was a public expressway. Our little berth of ten got 18 people in it, including ourselves. Bags and kids and people standing on toes and being Indians not in the slightest bit concerned for anyone elses discomfort or space. So i spent the next hour and a half trying to convince this kid that I didn't want to listen to his scratchy Tamil tunes, played through his even crapper mobile phone speaker and that he should use his headphones, which were in his hand. He came exceptionally close to disembarking from that train well before his station. I knew he understood what I was saying but paid me no heed.

Finally, Ooty station came about and India's most romantic train journey was over. I'll tell you now if you ever tried to sell this to a girlfriend, wife or partner as romantic you're either cruel and unusual or way out of touch. As for what it meant for Fraser and I's friendship well I think you can guess that for yourselves!

Ooty, however, brought many a smile with giant St Bernard dogs, transvestite men in saris and some of the coolest jumpers I've ever seen. (Not that cool Lyndsey but you'd certainly lose yourself there for a good couple of days) Plus, it's always nice to see somewhere that the shell suit didn't go out of fashion!

Ramble on..................

Click here for the photos

Temple-tastic travels

Done. That's it. Seen enough amazing temples and some shockers. In the mountains currently residing at a balmy 2200m hill station called Ooty. Having ridden India's steepest railway (1:12) from Mettupalayam (330m above sea level) to Udhagamandalam (Ooty's real name at 2286m) I've had to don a thermal tee and jumper. It's chilly. But back to our toy train. It was small. Fraser and I now the train buffs that we are slept on the station floor, the night before. Just so we were first in line for our tickets, nothing to do with the fact it doesn't cost!


Naturally we weren't first in line. Three Germans showed up about 2 hours early for the train at 5am. Poolside in a resort or in the middle of India they're getting their towels out early! Regardless we got in line and then had the jolly old time of having one of the Germans telling a French threesome, whom appeared around 6am not to jump the queue. They were behind us but he had automatically assumed we'd just gone to the actual front because in his word's we'd, "Slept in the train station so really want to ride the train." "Aye, mate, totally. We reaaaaaly want to ride this train!" Was the early morning Scot's sarcastic reply. I still think he thought we were serious. Very literal these Germans.

Given UNESCO world heritage status early in the 21st century, the Lonely Planet has dubbed 'The Nilgiri Toy Train' (We're currently in the Nilgiri Hills) the most romantic train journey in India! So while pondering what this meant for Fraser and I's friendship we boarded our we cabin.

I'm going to stop here as my hour is up on the internet but I want to leave you with the dictionaries definition of romantic and romance. Next time I'll let you know how closely it matches our journey into the mountains.

romantic - of, pertaining to, or of the nature of romance; characteristic or suggestive of the world of romance. Also, imaginary, fictitious, or fabulous.

romance - a novel or other prose narrative depicting heroic or marvelous deeds, pageantry, romantic exploits, etc., usually in a historical or imaginary setting.

Ramble on.........................

Scrabble-tastic

55 hour train journey? Nae bother gie us scrabble, which is what we did. I wasn't so sharp at the beginning getting trumped all the time by Fraser. But now, like the needle on a record player, I've found my groove. It's brilliant can't go wrong with Scrabble. I'm getting a couple of seven letter words occasionally and enjoying reading the dictionary and learning new words, like tintinnabulation.

I used it in one of my earlier posts you may remember. It's the tinkling or ringing noise from bells. Never a word I'll get out on the board but one for the arsenal of my vocabulary. But the reason I write is that I want to invent a new word. I got these letters the other day E, G, T, L, G, I, H.

I could see the light and had some options but then i came up with this little bit of genius THIGGLE. Now i looked it up and it's not in the dictionary (surprise, surprise). The more I thought about this word, the more I smiled, till I was having a little laugh to myself. That is in essence a thiggle or a thinking giggle.

So, next time you think about something and it makes you laugh, outwardly or just in your head, you've just had a thiggle. We've all seen people having a little laugh to themselves for some unbeknown reason. Now you know what it was. No, not chronic alcoholism, multiple personality disorder or just a slight screw loose they are just having a thiggle.

Get out there and enjoy it. Ramble on.......................................

on the road again

So three weeks dodging the end of an extended monsoon are over. The backpack has made back onto my back and i'm on the move. The last three weeks in a relatively small town called Paravur has been delightfully Keralan. The idea that India makes you skinny is a massive falicy if you live with Vizzy's mum's fantastic cooking. Three authentically Keralan dishes a day has seen me lose my brad pittesque physique and replace with a more bill murray a la caddyshack! But how can you turn it down when it's so bloody tasty! Amma, (Malyalam for mother) as we called her, thought Fraser and i were too skinny so she fed us. She gave up on Fraser as nothing sticks too him but was quite satisfied with the work she did on me!

Now we cut our guide loose and have set off to Varkala. A beach town just north of Trivandrum. We stopped in Kottayam and went on a backwater boat cruise with Vizzy and some of his friends. Beer was consumed and friends were made. I've also been to the jungle but it rained and our guide unfortunately had to go to hospital so we didn't quite get that deep. But i did see some wild monkeys, which didn't like to stay still for photos. I was quite excited to start using my Malayalam language skills but everyone here's Tibetan or Nepalese. But they all offer a very good price!

Soon it's going to be the very southern tip of India and then the journey all the way North begins. Temples and tundra in Tamil Nadu. So time to learn another whole language! I'm slowly loading photos onto flickr that'll be linked to my blog as it's faster than trying to upload them here. But I'm still on the Delhi - Aluya 55 hour train journey extravaganza so they'll not match up for a while. So i'll probably continue this ramble tomorrow. Till then i'm going to take my bill murray gut to the beach to see if i can catch some rays and some zzzzzzzzzzs.

Ramble on.....................