Steve’s flu hadn’t abated overnight so we rested until the hotel until it was time to check-out and head to the train station. A taxi was lurking by the central reservation so we diced with death to cross the road only to find he wanted an exorbitant sum to take us to central station. In the end we got in a tuc-tuc and went back to Andheri station which turned out to be much busier than we’d anticipated for the time of day. Luckily we managed to squeeze on with the bags and the train was quiet enough for a successful disembarkation. At Andheri the tuc-tuc driver dropped us at a different entrance and we couldn’t find a ticket booth so we travelled for free. No doubt we were two among thousands across Mumbai that day but actually we’d have happily paid the nominal amount. The railways are in desperate need of improvement and upgrading and I would say ensuring everyone pays would be a good start.
We reached Mumbai Central with plenty of time to catch our train to Vadodara, 6hrs up the line. A ticket in the A/C chair carriage cost Rs465 and it was money well spent as we were comfortable and had plenty of room for the bags. Chugging along the tracks that form one of Mumbai’s main arteries gives a snap-shot of India’s social divide. Brand new luxury apartment blocks tower above crumbling tenement buildings which in turn shadow the ram-shackled lean-tos abutting the tracks. Travelling through the city this way also shows you how much rubbish is generated and here in India it simply piles up and the poorest are forced to live among it. Mumbai could (should?) be a clean, green city – there’s even a patch of mangrove within its boundaries. However, mounds of litter, vehicles belching fumes, a pall of smog and everything covered in a thin layer of dust is the reality.
I find it utterly baffling that the newly rich India we hear about so often seems like a figment of someone’s imagination when you’re actually in the country. If business articles are to be believed then India has the means the resources to realise this country’s incredible potential.
It took over an hour for the train to trundle its way through the city and beyond its edge. It took a while longer for the sky to lose its grey pallor and for the leaves to gain their green shine. Travelling by train is definitely the preferred choice with a constant stream of vendors selling chai and tasty snacks. Even though Steve was still feeling rotten he enjoyed the train ride and it seemed to lift his spirits a little.
Unfortunately Vadodara soon had him feeling despondent again and I wasn’t too chuffed to find ourselves in a miniature version of Bombay. We’d booked ourselves first class tickets to a noisy, dirty town with nothing of interest for a foreign tourist. So why were all the decent looking hotels full? A flu laden Steve plonked down on a street corner while I went in search of a room for the night. The only place I could find with a vacancy was the shabby, old and outrageously over-priced Chandan Mahal Hotel. Its deluxe (for that read big) room wasn’t too bad but the bathroom wasn’t short of disgusting. At about $25 a night we weren’t impressed. When did India become so expensive? The last time we were here that standard of accommodation would have been duly priced and spending $20+ would have got you a decent room. Luckily we’d not had to traipse around too much as the train station, market and hotels are all conveniently concentrated in one small area.
You must be wondering why on earth we were here as well as all those people hogging the decent hotel rooms. We were basically on our way to the south coast of Gujarat and decided to break up the journey but didn’t fancy Ahmedabad. We’d read that about 40kms away from Vadodara there was a UNESCO site with lots of old temples so we thought we’d have a look. Unfortunately, our onward options didn’t work out as planned because the bus station had been temporarily moved out of town. In the end we bought tickets for the night train from Ahmedabad to Veruval and we would have to catch the 6pm intercity train from Vadodara. From there we hoped to get to Sasan Gir National Park to track down the rare Asiatic lions as a belated birthday treat for Steve. Today wasn’t turning out to be one of his better birthdays – poor lad.
All told we ended up not having enough time to visit the UNESCO site so had ended up staying in Vadodara superfluously. Harumph!!! We thought a Gujarati thali would lift our spirits so headed for a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet. Even this didn’t work out as planned. We’d read that Gujarati food tends to be sweeter than the rest of India but by that we thought they use fewer hot spices and more of the aromatic ones such as cloves, cardamom and star anise. We knew the thali would come with sweets too but we didn’t expect all the dishes to be laden with sugar. I mean who wants a dessert sweet curry? It’s very rare we frequent restaurants that get a write up in the LP as we generally find that their popularity has resulted in them losing their authenticity. We won’t make that mistake again!
In fact we’re not finding the new style Lonely Planet useful at all. First of all there seems to be minimal information on places we’re interested in visiting. Secondly we don’t find the format as user friendly as it used to be and there are lots of typing errors. Lastly and most significantly the two reasons we’ve stuck with the LP over the years; namely the travel information and maps, have become minimal and useless respectively. It’s virtually impossible to work out where things are actually located using their maps and that’s if they even bother to mark them on. We’ve said for a while now that the Lonely Planet no longer caters for the budget traveller and this edition confirms this. Their target market is firmly the drag-packer not the back-packer. It’s a breeze-block of a tome to be carrying round and it’s in danger of finding itself in the bin!
Rant over – let’s get back to our travels. We arrived at the station way ahead of the 6.10pm intercity train to Ahmedabad but per usual nothing was straight-forward. We jumped on the next train that we thought was bound for Ahmedabad but it didn’t conform to any schedules. None-the-less it would get us there in plenty of time to catch our connection. We weren’t 100% sure we were on the right train so asked a cross section of the platform population for their opinion. It seemed we would end up in the right place but each person we asked pronounced Ahmedabad in a different way, with none of them resembling our British version. Against the odds our unscheduled amalgamation of at least 2 trains actually got us to Ahmedabad leaving us with an hour to spare. We had odd seats, in a sleeper carriage – at least the upper bunk provided enough room for us and our bags and gave us a taste of what was in store for that night.
Our night train duly arrived and we tracked down our seat via the computer print-out that is stuck on the outside of each carriage. Our ticket was gobble-de-gook so it was just as well we found our names and berth numbers. The 22:00hrs Somnath Express hauled itself out of the station bang on time at 22:15pm!
