Trains, planes and tuk tuks
INDIA | Wednesday, 1 February 2012 | Views [843]
36 hours after departing from Denver, we arrived safely in Allepey, Kerala. The vast majority of our travels were uneventful, even boring which is what one would hope for on such a long journey. However, it was when we boarded in Dubai for Kochi when things finally got interesting. The boarding "line" was a cluster of people just pushing and cutting everywhere with the gate agent trying to maintain some semblance of control. On the plane, I had an aisle seat, and the gentleman next to me seemed to think he had paid for half of my seat as well. I spent the better part of the flight trying to avoid his elbows and shoulders as he snuffled and snored in our seats. All in all, this is barely an issue -- everyone has had that experience. But as soon as we landed and began taxiing, the plane became a giant shoving match as people attempted to get their bags and race off the flight. I became squished between several large, smelly men and crammed up against the side of a chair with several more people pushing to get by. First lesson in personal space.
When we met up in Dubai, all of us had already reached the exhaustion-induced delirious point where everything is funny, and so when we arrived in Kerala 4 hours later at 8 in the morning, we were already at the mental breaking point. Of course, the universe sensed this and thought it'd be funny to keep poking us. While Kellie and I went about getting a cab, Michael crossed the street to get to an ATM. It was at this point, a car backed into him -- ok, not really him, but his bag which he had been dragging. Just a taste of what was to follow.
While we were planning this entire trip, Vinay made us promise to not rent and drive a car in India. The Lonely Planet guide warns travelers to avoid driving if at all possible, and Vinay has even shown us youtube videos of traffic in Mumbai that would terrify even LA drivers. I apparently repressed all these warnings (possibly from the exhaustion), and as we hopped in the first cab to take us to the train station, I was completely unaware of how close to death we were.
They drive on the left side of the road here. And the right. And on the shoulder. And off the road. Traffic is defined as cars, tuk tuks, ambling pedestrians, bikes with 2+ people on it (sometimes while carrying other bikes), motorcycles and insanity. Roads are defined as any path a car can squeeze through -- the more pedestrians present, the better. I have never seen a better application of rules being more like guidelines that no one really knows or cares about. There were no seatbelts in that car, and I have never wished more for one.
Passing is really a game of chicken with on-coming traffic and seeing how fast we can go towards those vehicles and how many people can be cut off at once. I honestly think we were more often in the right (opposing) lane, accelerating towards on-coming traffic than we were in the left lane. And this wasn't just our cabbie -- every single vehicle seemed to be participating in this form of vehicular life-or-death dodgeball, and it's not uncommon to see 2 or 3 vehicles passing another vehicle at the same time with other cars speeding towards them. Horns are used constantly -- not out of anger, but to warn others that they need to get out of the way or the car behind them is going to push them aside. Pedestrians do not have right of way, but it seems that they cross whenever and wherever they want and simply trust that vehicles will swerve at the last possible second to avoid them. We are so terrified to cross the street here -- we walked along the shoulder (there are no sidewalks) for 50 yards and nearly got hit by a bus full of gawkers, several cars, and motorcycles galore before turning back and cowering in the safety of our hotel.
When we finally arrived at our destination, our cabbie nearly ran down a group of 5 pedestrians and then pinned them between our car and cars to our immediate right. Rightfully indignant, they began banging on the windows and yelling at the driver. He stopped mid-squish and opened his door to yell at them - I don't know what he said, but I'm sure it was something along the lines of, "who do you think you are and what gives you the right to walk in front of me?!" We squirmed awkwardly as the shouting match got heated, the driver drove 10 meters forward to drop us off, and then we were encompassed by the angry mob again. As they argued, we slinked off quietly and fortunately, no one was interested in our escape.
At the train station in Aluva, it became readily apparent that men have no qualms about staring at girls. Kellie, Michael and I already stand out in a crowd here, but no one made any attempt to pretend that that wasn't the case. Patience already running low, this only agitated us further.
We confirmed our train was arriving at this station and stood amidst the crowd of locals to wait for it to arrive. As a train passed by, we noticed that the old and dessicated cars were crammed completely full of people -- it was eerily reminiscent of a cattle car. We must have looked shocked because a tout quickly approached us and attempted to get us to hire a cab to take us to our destination. We turned him down, but he returned less than 10 minutes later to tell us our train was delayed 45 minutes and to see if we wanted a taxi then. Kellie and Michael are much smarter than gullible me and figured this was just a scam to get us to take a cab instead. Unfortunately, the tout was correct and we waited in a highly agitated state for our train to arrive.
What no one ever warned us about was how hard it is to get on a train in India. The actual boarding isn't that hard, but identifying the correct trains and the correct cars can be very difficult. It is not unusual for a train to arrive 30 minutes early or 30 minutes late. There are different classes of cars based on fares, but it is unpredictable where in the train each car will be. As train after train passed us by, we tried to figure out how we would know which of the 30 different cars to get on. At one point, I chased a train all the way to the end of the station trying to figure out which end our class of car was before it pulled out of the station (no, I didn't figure it out). In the end, Michael made an astute observation about how to identify our cars, and we came up with the best plan possible given the information we had: We would wait in the middle of the platform prepared to run in either direction as quickly as possible with luggage in tow. Not exactly a foolproof plan. In my mind, I could already imagine each of us sprinting in different directions (one to either end, and one frantically flailing in the classic deer-in-headlights position).
When our train finally arrived, we chased down the appropriate car and raced onboard. I am carrying my backpacking bag and got on first, walking down the mostly-empty car looking for our seat numbers. It wasn't until several moments later that I didn't realize Michael and Kellie weren't behind me -- they are each towing large, wheeled, carry-on suitcases that are far too bulky to easily manuever through a traincar. They were bumping into everyone and getting stuck at each row while I agitatedly tried to communicate with someone who was in our seats -- despite the rest of the car being almost completely empty. Seeing how much of a mess our group clearly was, he didn't bother explaining that we could really sit anywhere and simply moved away a couple rows to watch the entertainment.
Each one of these events in and of itself is typically a non-event. However, it was the combination of them all happening one after the other and joining with our exhaustion and jetlag, dehydration, massive culture shock, and the residual terror left over from the cab ride to create a frustrating and draining couple of hours where we all felt in way over our heads. Just hours earlier, Kellie and I had been exploring one of the most extravagant cities in the world -- how was it possible that we were stuck in this dusty, crazy, confusing and infuriating place less than a day later? 3 hours in India, and we were just about ready to pack it in and head back to the states.
Fortunately, as we sat on the train and calmed down, we started to find humor in the whole situation -- it was ridiculous we had even made it as far as we had that morning given how unprepared we were for what we had faced. When we finally arrived at our destination, Allepey, we had a slightly improved outlook on our trip.
We hopped on the houseboat, and our entire perspective changed. It was just the three of us on the boat along with 3 crew members. We floated through the Kerala backwaters all afternoon and evening, complemented with amazing meals made by the on-board cook. We stopped along the waterways to buy fresh prawns from a local vendor, and lounged in the open-air watching the palm trees and rice paddies float by. The peacefulness and secludedness helped counter the effects of the stressful morning, and we ended up relaxing and holding each others eyelids open until the jetlag finally overtook us. So, all in all, a successful day even if there were some major obstacles to get over. Onward to more Indian adventures!
