Kolkata to Varanasi by train

Tags

Bojack Horseman, happiness, Incredible India, India, Indian train journeys, Kolkata, Love India, mindfulness, Netflix, Safety, Travel

Draft book chapter

We got a taxi to the train station which gave us a view of Kolkata whilst being insulated inside our ac car.  We passed steel shops full of pipes and sheets of steel, lots of small trade or industrial units, like the auto parts area of Chennai.

There was the odd newly painted or well maintained building that stood out amongst the grey.  Pavement stalls sold basic provisions; I saw a stallholder sitting on the floor measuring out handfuls of rice or flour with his hand into newspaper packets.

We saw a big metal bridge, and huge grand colonial buildings, one big and red, they seemed to be mainly banks.

Kolkata train station was busy outside and in.  There was a big board with all the trains on, we were early and there was nothing about our train yet.  We went into a food place, it had a quieter seating area upstairs that was calm.  The manager came up to us and shook my husband’s hand, and asked us for our order; he looked a little crestfallen when we only ordered veg fried rice, a safe staple for travelling.

‘See, there’s always someone,’ my husband said.  Always in India there seemed to be someone who offered help or came to befriend or talk to us.

The station master told us which platform.  Our train was called The Doon Express, which sounded like something from Harry Potter.

The station wasn’t really that bad after all.  I’d been preparing myself, having watched the film Lion, but actually, after having food and then going back down and hanging about, it wasn’t as hectic as I’d thought.

There were a few dogs lying down, just sleeping right in the middle amongst where people walked.  There were lots of people on blankets, not sleeping rough, just encamped waiting for trains.

The colours of Kolkata station seemed to be navy blue.  A woman in a navy blue kurta and blue leggings, another woman dressed all in navy blue with a white scarf; a Sikh man wearing a navy blue velvet turban.

On the platform itself, it was dirty and dusty.  The train was delayed so we had a bit of a wait.  A man hung around us and stared at us a lot, in the end my husband shouted at him to go.  I felt uncomfortable, but it seemed like he was after money rather than being a threat.  There was an Indian man standing near us, and I felt as if he would have helped had we needed.  Another Indian man asked my husband about the train; although we were at the correct platform, we’d been advised to keep listening to the announcements as platforms can be changed at any time, which meant no one was 100% certain.  It meant we made a connection with someone on the platform.  I bought water from the platform kiosk and the man was super friendly which further reassured me.

There was a big queue for the regular class, people with big plastic drums, I didn’t know what of, food stuff, containers of possessions, goods?

We saw a fellow tourist and thought we were probably in the same class, and walked up the platform in the same direction as him.

Anthony the waiter had booked our tickets before we started booking our own.  We were in three tier, which is a step down from two, with shabby looking chains and no curtains.

A family got on, they seemed really hesitant to sit down, I wondered if it was because the women and girls didn’t want to sit next to my husband; he moved, we tried to offer to move places, us to move to the two side beds, allowing them the whole bay with the set of four beds, but we weren’t able to communicate with each other.

Just before the train left most of their party got off anyway as they were just saying goodbye, and some of the others went off to seats elsewhere.

A grandmother from a different family with a baby came to see us, ‘Say hi,’ she said to the baby.  She gave me the baby to hold, nonchalantly.  The baby’s parents came to chat.  They explained that they were a party of eight on a thirty-six hour journey to visit a Hindu pilgrimage site.  A family with a tiny baby, on a thirty six hour train journey, that’s how important their religion is.

We showed the family pictures of where we had stayed in Kolkata, the Grandmother’s face was a picture; they didn’t share our enchantment with the old buildings.

The baby was after the mum’s glasses.  The Grandmother tried to encourage the baby to take my husband’s glasses when he wasn’t looking.  She called us Grandfather and Grandmother to the baby.  ‘Not Auntie and Uncle?’ I asked, ‘No no, Grandfather, Grandmother,’ she said firmly.  Fair enough, okay, we’re old enough.

The woman, the baby’s mum, pointed at my Om pendant and asked me if I knew what it meant.  I gave a solid explanation and she nodded and seemed satisfied.  ‘Why are you going to Varanasi?’ she asked.  Indian people can be very direct.  My husband answered that one.  ‘India is one of the holiest countries in the world, and Varanasi is one of the holiest places in India, and the feeling you get from being in such a place is something we really appreciate, even though we aren’t Hindus.’

The family chatted to us for ages then left.  It was so sweet of them.  ‘Do you think they all just decided to come and talk to us? That they said to each other, let’s go and talk to them?’  My husband said.  We were the only foreigners we could see in our carriage.  Often when travelling on the train it was the same; we often wondered how the foreigners got to places.

I finished my blog and then we watched Netflix.  Like reading people’s blogs, Netflix provided a continuity, a thread that held me, wherever we were.

The comfort of watching BoJack Horseman together on my husband’s tablet.  As the silky intro music came on, languid with a sound like bubbles popping, I felt a wave of emotion and my eyes almost filled up.

‘Wherever you go, that’s where you are.’*  That’s true.  My white room in Harleston, my husband had gone out, I had stayed in feeling ill with a cold, and was cosy and happy watching endless BoJack; that music, the colours…  Every hotel room, every place.  The only thing I’m homesick for, is here.

I brushed my teeth and got into bed, my husband checked the chains to reassure me before I climbed up.  There was a clean white cotton sheet and a thick heavy charcoal woollen blanket.  I folded my scarf lengthwise and hung it over the chains which were covered in vinyl sleeves.

I lay there, I felt the train, lots of shaking and movement, and relaxed.  I felt myself come back into India, and India come back into me.  Moving, clanking, like gears, like a chiropractor, like my body assimilating into India again, adjusting.  I felt safe, and I slept.

At four am the half of the family that were seated elsewhere came to the half that were near us, started chatting with each other and woke us up.  At five am they got off and more people got on, people just talking normally with no concession to people sleeping.  ‘This is India,’ we had to tell ourselves.

At six am I gave up trying to go back to sleep up and got up.  I went to the loo and afterwards I stood looking out of the door- at least one of the doors are usually wide open on the trains.

Outside there was miles and miles of green.  There were derelict buildings, some being used as dwellings.  In the middle of the expanse of green there was a little gold temple.  I felt India say to me, ‘I got you.’  I wasn’t afraid anymore, and all the love was back.

Thank you very much for reading

*Jon Kabat-Zinn

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Currently in Vietnam.  Returning to the UK in three weeks to live on a narrowboat.  Writing a book about everything…

Kolkata

Tags

Incredible India, India, Kolkata, Love India, Travel, Traveling, Travelling

Extracts of draft chapter for book

I arrived at Kolkata airport at one am.  I had a minor hiccup at immigration with not having the full address of the guesthouse- I hadn’t picked up my husband’s text- and then I was through.

I saw my husband outside and headed out, he wasn’t where I thought he’d be as he had walked to meet me.  We had a big hug.  It felt slightly surreal, us both being tired from our journeys, and the fact that one day I’m in Japan and he’s in Cambodia and then the next we’re back in India together.  It’s such a miracle, travelling.

It still felt warm, even at one am.  There was a kiosk open over the road; my husband had been there earlier, when he’d arrived.  I got food but wasn’t really hungry; I felt wired, kind of fatigued but not feeling sleepy.  There was a steep bank and steps on the same side as the kiosk, with lots of people sitting with suitcases and people laying and sleeping on the steps.  We met up with my husband’s Uber driver, and then we were off.

My first impression of Kolkata, which surprised me, was lots of bright lights.  A strip of blue lights on the road, very snazzy, and big smart brightly lit buildings; including one which in my sleep-deprived state I thought said ‘Government Enlightenment Institute,’ (was actually Engineering.)

I’d forgotten about the signs- only in India- ‘Give blood but not on the road.’

Then we came to run down buildings, then very run down, I saw a thin cow eating out of garbage, and nearer our guesthouse lots of people sleeping outside, and cycle rickshaws.  People were asleep on the top of taxis and just on the pavement in the open.

Our guesthouse was a beautiful grand old building with marble stairs and lots of wrought iron.  One of the staff had stayed up to let us in.

Our room was big with two fans and one double, one single bed.  It was clean enough although it smelled a bit musty.  I saw tendrils of mould growing under the beds, from the floor up the wall a good few inches, like thick embossed wallpaper in the shape of knobbly little trees.

There was a shared bathroom with a padlock and a key, ‘No one much else about though,’ my husband said.  The bathroom had blue dolphin tiles on the wall, and an orange bucket.  It reminded me of my old bathroom in my house before last, which also had blue dolphin tiles, and orange walls the same colour as the bucket.

The room was very hot, and the wet from the shower was quickly replaced by the wet of sweat in minutes.  We spent most of the time covered in a layer of sweat, which was especially itchy at the back of the knees.  One window was broken in places, there was no mosquito mesh so we had to be careful with opening the shutters and windows.
It was a big room so I could do stretches, vs Tokyo where I could only do a few stretches at the wash basins, if there was no one about.

When we went out, my husband told me to look out for the bumps in the road, like invisible sleeping policemen, that would otherwise trip you up.  There were hand and bicycle rickshaws on the corner near our guesthouse.  The rickshaw drivers offered once but were not pushy.

We got a bicycle rickshaw to Sudder Street, which is meant to be the backpacker area.  Watching a man’s sweat and muscles take us along was a challenge to my natural sensitivities and conditioning.  But a bicycle rickshaw was a great way to experience the narrow streets.  The view was super sensory overload, so busy, loads of tiny shops, birds nests of wires, again; and meat, ‘Don’t look right, look straight ahead,’ my husband said a couple of times.  He said I looked like a rabbit in the headlights.  ‘Maybe something easier would have been better for my day of return,’ I said. ‘I don’t think there is anything easier,’ he said.

Sudder Street was very busy and crowded, there was a long street market, with stalls selling cotton Indian dresses, cheap scarfs, piles of thin bright coloured Indian women’s trousers, and lots of Indian people shopping.

Then we were almost caught up in a huge queue, which we found out was going into a new shopping centre with an opening day sale.  It was not flashy, it looked like a 1980s UK shopping centre.  We wanted to say, No no no don’t do it, but that’s not how it works, as my husband says, everyone’s got to experience it for themselves, it’s no good us who have had it all telling people who haven’t not to bother (with capitalism, consumerism, and stuff.)

There didn’t seem to be anything in between chicken sticks and street food, and posh restaurants.  We went into a restaurant, posher than we’d normally go to, inside it looked more like a bar or a nightclub, and ate veg curry, rice and dal.

It was too hot to do more, so we walked through the crowds and negotiated a cab out of there.  I was amazed that my husband had been to Sudder Street already; he’d arrived a few hours before me and gone to look for a different guesthouse, as ours wasn’t really near food etc., but he said the rooms he looked at were horrible; damp, and expensive.  Plus Sudder street was crazy, as I saw for myself; I didn’t mind not staying there.

We found somewhere within walking distance for dinner, again, posher than we’d normally go.  I noticed white rabbits around in the form of bins, one grey with dust and age, one almost white.  In the restaurant area, which was opposite a market and where festival preparations were taking place, a man said, ‘Hello,’ and ‘Welcome.’

At the table next to ours was an Indian woman unselfconsciously taking tens of selfies while waiting for her food.

On the walk from the restaurant to our guesthouse we passed little houses on the pavements, proper homes with cooking set ups outside, a community with neighbours, and people washing at standpipes.

We went out to get my thyroid medication, we searched online for a good pharmacy and then went looking on foot, without breakfast.  We ended up going a long time without food or drink in the heat, a mistake again like our first day in Chennai.  The fourth pharmacist was able to help and I bought a three month supply to last the rest of the trip.  The pharmacist asked what we did for a living back home, ‘We’re in the same business,’ he said.

Tokyo to Kolkata was SUCH a shock to the system.  Walking down the main road it was so busy, with lots of people asking us for money, children following and tugging on our sleeves, young women and girls saying hi.  If we stopped still for a moment we got approached.  We reached a big junction, decided the idea of crossing was too crazy and turned back.  There were pavement dwellers right on the main road, right by the pollution from the road; so many people, my heart did swell up a little.

We didn’t have anywhere like Chennai with our chai stall, our coffee stall, our juice bar, our breakfast cafe and our restaurant for the evening, (plus loads of other options available), all of which had been found within the first twenty-four hours, but in spite of the lack of food, I was happy with our area.

The buildings epitomised the descriptive phrase ‘faded grandeur.’  One with newly painted shiny maroon shutters stood out.  The details of the buildings were still there, the coving, the arches; now black and white, now sepia, but when new…  Grey houses made colourful with washing.  A mosque, beside it a pile of rubble and a derelict street.

We found a soda place to sit and have a drink, next to it there was a tiny shop packed with hair products, dyes, jewellery; I bought two pairs of sparkly earrings.

In the street were chickens, cats, white and coloured, and thin dogs.
We passed two Indian tourists, smartly dressed with smart luggage, stood looking like they had arrived in the wrong part of town.

Near the market I saw an underwear advert on a post.  The model was voluptuous by Western standards, soft and with a tummy.  Seeing underwear pictures and pretty underwear on open display made it feel easy to buy, and the stalls had both men and women serving.  I hadn’t seen knickers for sale very often, let alone any suitable.  Here, I pointed to my hips and asked if they had anything to fit.  I bought two pairs of 100% cotton knickers, and they fitted perfectly.

Our train to Varanasi was overnight so we arranged to keep the room for the day so we could hang about and rest there before going to the station.

I looked again at the mould tendrils under the bed.  It wasn’t actual mould like embossed wallpaper, it had been cleaned, and just the marks were left.

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Currently in Vietnam.  Returning to the UK in four weeks to live on a narrowboat.  Writing a book about everything…

Thailand Part Three

Tags

Best life yet, escape the matrix, Kolkata, Manifestation, Personal growth, Tarot, Thailand, Travel

 

 

 

 

THAILAND PART THREE (Draft chapter for book) 

My husband said, ‘Oh by the way, J said she’ll deal with any spiders we have.’ ‘That’s great,’ I said, ‘Yep, I’m okay with them,’ J said.

The first night we went out and drank. Many years ago I used to drink to excess to try and ‘get somewhere,’ into some alternate reality where everyone was really themselves and we all connected. It took me a long time to realise that alcohol doesn’t really raise consciousness; in fact it was a long time before I was even interested in raising my consciousness or knew what it meant. Now, even if I am a bit drunk, there’s a bit of me looking down, outside of it all asking, ‘What are you doing this for?’

Earlier on we ate dinner at one of the places in town that did 24 hour breakfasts for party goers. It was the night of the Full Moon Party and there were lots of people wearing what looked like a fancy dress uniform of white t shirts with UV paint splashes.

The loo was upstairs, up a flight of steep steps, each step was really high, it was something we noticed a lot in Thailand, how high the individual steps were, like giant’s steps. Opposite, across the alley was a row of touristy fast food places. Above one of them was someone’s home with washing hung out on hangers, the way I’d seen when we first arrived in Bangkok.

We had to buy party tickets to go onto the beach, we were early, most people don’t go until midnight, but we were just taking a look. On the beach, J walked along picking up rubbish, she picked up a plastic cup at the edge of the sea. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said, ‘I think, What if a fish got stuck in it… But then I eat fish, so…’ We both laughed. All the bars had different DJs and along the beach were different sound systems. We picked the best one, J went off to dance and my husband and I sat on the sand.

He said, if we can get any, do you want to take some MDMA? Me being me, I anxiously discussed all the risks. I really am the least cool person to do drug deals with, as I said before I like taking drugs sometimes, but I don’t like to get involved with the getting of them. A Thai man approached us and offered us some Ecstasy, we let him go. The three of us went off the beach, to a bar in a side street that was quieter. J texted her friend who had spent a lot of time on the islands for advice; they messaged back, deal with Westerners only. A likely person appeared, J approached them- she being younger and cooler looking than us. J did the deal and we left. We got home safely, just as most people were starting to go out. J and my husband tried a little bit of the MDMA but it made J feel sick on top of all the cocktails, and we put it away for another time.

We had breakfast at the 24 hour breakfast place, which did healthy food as well, oat and almond milk smoothies and big smoothie bowls of ice cold pureed spinach and fruit, too much to eat.

We ate dinner at a local place. J and I were bothered by them playing a horror movie, even if we didn’t look at the screen we could hear the screaming… ‘Well we could try to ignore it, or I could ask them to turn it off,’ I said. A group of women at the next table were also talking about how they hated horror films. ‘Or we could just leave,’ my husband said, so we did- we had finished our meal. It was a good metaphor for dealing with people or situations that upset your equilibrium, you can work on accepting it or on trying to change them, or you can just… leave.

One evening we’d eaten at the on site restaurant, on returning to our room I decided to stay outside for a few moments. I sat on the bench outside the room and ate some little lychee type fruits. J and my husband went inside. A few minutes later there was a shout or a scream. J came out, ‘F***ing hell, that’s huge,’ she said, shaking, ‘Is that what you’ve had to deal with?’ ‘I haven’t even seen it yet,’ my husband called out. ‘Oh yes, now I have…’ He came out a few minutes later. ‘I thought you said you were good with spiders? ‘Yes, normal ones, not ones that big!’ J said.

My husband had found a place for us all to go and look at. It was away from the party bit and more in a normal town. We got a taxi there. There were no rickshaws on the island, only big four by four jeeps that were expensive. We got dropped off in town and walked to the place.

It was perfect, with a simple, quiet bar-restaurant, with decking and floor cushions, grassy grounds with palm trees, right on the beach. The accommodation was little chalet bungalows, we could have two next door to each other. It was the perfect setting for taking the MDMA. We paid a deposit and stopped and had a drink, excited to be moving soon.

On the way back I, who isn’t always that good with directions, said, ‘Look out J, I think this is the monkey place,’ two seconds later, and there they were, a group of three monkeys, for J! Earlier I had manifested scrap paper when I needed it, although that isn’t quite as exciting as monkeys.

One evening we walked along the beach towards town, beside a resort, and heard an incredible noise. We wondered what it was. Ciccadas? Someone learning to play the didgeridoo- very badly? A man was in the grounds, so I asked him. He said a word we couldn’t catch, then spelled it out f-r-o-g. ‘Oh, frog! How many, many frogs?’ ‘No, maybe three or four. I show you,’ he said. We followed him up some steps, the sound stopped immediately. He shone a light and beckoned us to look. A little brown and white frog sat looking at us under the light. It seemed incredible that just four or five of those little creatures could make that much noise. ‘Not for eating,’ he said, ‘Not dangerous, but not for eating.’ We reassured him we had no intention of eating them, thanked him and went on our way.

One evening playing pool we heard another strange noise, it turned out to be a big gecko that lived outside on the back wall of the restaurant. She spent most of her time behind a sign, we just saw the tip of her tail and nose. ‘She is the mother’, the staff told us. It was only in Thailand that I realised they make a sound like Gek-oh, gek-oh. We saw lots of little ones around, like the house lizards we had seen in India.

On our last evening in Haad Rin, I went for a little walk by myself on the beach. The sea was unbelievably still, exactly like a lake. The colours of the surface, milky opal green, mauve-blue, looked like oil or glass. Above the sea, a sunset and at the shore, a little red boat. It was picture perfect paradise but it lacked the emotion of India.

Later we went to the party beach for the last time. J and I had our Tarot cards read. My husband had had his done the week before. The tarot man looked cool, with a thin curled moustache, sat cross legged on a blanket on the sand.

He turned over the first card. His face broke into a smile and he looked at me. ‘Ahh, sexy lady! Sexy when sleeping, sexy when wake up, sexy walking down the street. Everyone loves you.’ He turned over another card. ‘Good family, man loves you. You love everyone.’ He looked at my hands. ‘You are strong!’ He exclaimed. ‘You look after everyone.’ Another card. ‘You make money, September, October, November.’ Another card. ‘You worry about a young one. Okay, everything okay.’ Another card. ‘You the boss, work, home. You do stuff. Another card. ‘You like to cook? At work? You could do, for money.’ Another card. ‘Look after your heart, and your blood. Smoking not good for you. Bad air, sleeping, working, dirty air, not good for you. Potatoes good, cool, warm.’

I’d just eaten potatoes and actually commented, ‘Very grounding.’ Potatoes, in fact any vegetables that grow below ground, are meant to help ground you if you feel your spiritual awakening/frequency rising is going a bit fast. Conversely, if you want to speed up the process, the advice is to only eat vegetables that grow above ground. Sounds crazy, but in the midst of such an experience, in the absence of any advice from elsewhere, I’ll take it, and because I believe it works, it works for me.

In the taxi, almost at our new place, my husband said, ‘There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I forgot the MDMA.’ He almost went back, but we decided it wasn’t worth the risk that they’d already found it, even though he was sure they wouldn’t have done as it was hidden well out of sight on top of the very high wardrobe and right at the back where it could potentially stay undiscovered for months.

We wished we could have put it on social media as it was in the party area, the whole complex was full of party goers, no kids or families, we wished we could tell people, stay at xxxx make sure you get room xx. But we couldn’t, so we had fun imagining people who had been desperate to get some but been unable to getting a very nice surprise, or people on it and wanting more thinking they’d conjured it!

Personal request
On Monday my son has major dental surgery scheduled, followed by recovery and then implants work to be scheduled. Those of you who have been here for a long time/read old posts or who know me face to face will know that this has long been a source of great anxiety and heartbreak for me, let alone for him. If anyone feels inclined to send good vibes, kind thoughts, include him in your prayers, spells or healing thoughts, from Monday and anytime afterwards, that would be gratefully appreciated. His name is Siris. Thank you xxxx

Travel update
Back in India. Tokyo to Kolkata was quite an adjustment, after six plus weeks out of India. Kolkata is really something else, for pics see my husband’s Instagram travelswithanthony
But after three nights in Kolkata and one overnight train journey to Varanasi, I am back in India and back in love. Not to mention reuniting with my husband after the longest we’ve spent apart in seven years. Altogether now…

Writing update
What with all the travelling I haven’t managed to do very much, just the short piece posted today, as well as some typing up of Tokyo notes. I am also writing notes on Kolkata, the journey, and Varanasi, by hand in my notebook, for later.

PS If you have Netflix, here’s a recommendation: BoJack Horseman

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week