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..................

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