So I stayed in Cochin one night and decided to move on. Too many weterners for my liking. I got a ferry from Fort Cochin to the mainand, then a bus and taxi down to Karvala on the coast. This journey was made with a German lady from Berlin. It was a bloody nightmare day. No hotels in Karvala (again very touristy and booked up solid with Thomas Cook package holidaymakers - bloody nuisances). So we went to the train station and got tickets for Trivandrum (capital city of Kerala). We had to run across the train tracks to jump on a train which had literally just started moving. Such fun! Then got to a very basic "hotel". It cost One pound 80 pence for the night! It was clean. Went out for a meal and that was 85 pence for the two of us!!!! We then really struggled to find somewhere that would server us beer. We found a dingy, low lit bar full of whisky drinking Indian men. An ice cold Kingfisher was enjoyed.
Next day I went south to the lands end equivalent of India. Still can't remember it's name. It was ok and serverd a purpose (on the route to somewhere else). Another Indian family adopted me and fed me lunch. They were lovely. Next day I got a bus for a 6 hour journey to Madurai. This has got to be the most traffic filled city I've been i so far. After securing a hotel room, I went straight to the railway station to get a ticket for the next days journey to Pondercherry. "All trains full" was the response from the enquiry desk. "Foreign tourist quota" I replied hopefully. "All trains full" said the broken record behind the desk. This called for desperate measures. I turned up at the station at 05:45 for the 06:45 train. I bought an unreserved ticket. This means it's a free for all in 4 carriages. There were about 45,500 of the lowest class Indians wanting to share those 4 carriages with me and they had sharper elbows than me. I tried to bribe my way to the front of the queue but they just laughed when I showed them money - how times have changed in India. So plan B was hatched, a plan so cunning I would be laughing all the way to Pondercherry. I jumped into a carriage which was half full but required you to have a reservation ("All trains full" territory). The train set off and I had lots of room. The ticket inspector came and I was ready with my dumb English tourist routine. He just said the carriage would be full at the next station and I would need to try a different carriage. No money required to upgrade my ticket on this better class carriage. It was my lucky day. In the end I did have to stand for an hour or so but I was quite happy to do that and spent the time talking to an Indian teacher working in Malawi, Africa (well he was on the train actully, not in Malawi at the time I was talking to him, obviously!).
Then it was a 1 hour bus ride with Satan himself (the driver). He was a complete nutcase and I thought my return air ticket was not going to be needed on a few occasions. Eventaully I was deposited in a place called Pondercherry. It is " a slice of France in India" according to the Lonely Planet guide (my bible). It's just like France - shut! Actually that's not fair. It is the only place on the Indian sub continent that has a "siesta" in the afternoon but it's actually a very nice place and I will stay here for a few days before finishing off my journey in Chennai (or Madras as the Indians call it, and they call Mumbai, Bombay and Kolkata, Calcutta!!!!!!!).
Right, I'm off to get a curry and a beer, not neccessarily in that order. So TTFN.
M
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