Darjeeling to Varanasi

Had bacon and eggs for breakfast at Glenary's. Not fantastic but a delightful change from the hotel. 
Despite confirming the taxi from the hotel this morning, it arrived half an hour late after another reminder. Initially I was annoyed but the driver was pretty good, even stopping a couple of times for me to take photos of the spectacular views. Followed the railway as far as Kurseong where we parted company, descending down some steep hairpin bends. The hillsides looked beautiful, carpeted with yellow flowers which also decorated  the roadside. At Kurseong we stopped for a break and a cup of Darjeeling tea.  Learnt later that this is the wedding season. Arrived at NJP to find the North Eastern Express, my train,  is delayed by about 45 minutes. NJP is a big station and they have even got an escalator up to the footbridge but only steps to the platforms. Sure it made sense to someone. All trains seem to depart from Platform 3 but then they announced that the North Eastern was moved to Platform 5. Finally get on and it crawls out of NJP Station at 1812; cue the music. Realise that because I didn't register with Indian railways “Next Generation e-Ticketing System" using an Indian phone, I am not getting notification of my berth number. Unlike most systems where you reserve seats or berths on trains, the system doesn’t assign one when you book. If you have an Indian phone you get an SMS sometime before the train leaves telling you the seat or berth number but it doesn’t seem able to cope with a non-Indian phone. But someone says I am in Berth 34 which is good enough for me. Later a man with a computer print out, pages and pages of that wide fan-fold paper  that used to spew out of computer printers, and presumably still does in India,  confirms it. This time I am in AC2 class, definitely a few notches below AC1. Open sleepers,  four berths on one side and two parallel to, and on the other side of, the aisle. It all looks rather tatty, with fresh linen for the berth delivered in a paper bag for DIY. Think it’s rather ominous that my “room mates”, three guys between 20-40,  have secured their bags to the metal frames of the berths with heavy chains and padlocks.   Reminds me, for some obscure reason  of a happier overnight train journey with C  from Singapore to KL in a 1st Class Sleeper. Only time I have ever made love on a train.

Old Steam Locomotive at Mughal Sarai Station

 
View from the Road

View from the Road

Reading "A Cold Heart" by Jonathan Kellarman, a “who dunnit” lent to me by R. Tried some of the snacks I bought yesterday. The white ones are almost pure sugar and the brown cookie-like ones are almost tasteless, only in extreme hunger.  Turned in for the night at 10pm.

Sunday 19 th November
Woke up after a rather fitful sleep at 6.30 travelling  through a misty, pancake flat, arable  agricultural landscape. After the mist cleared I can see endless golden rice fields broken only by small villages.
Indian trains aren’t like European, or any other trains I can think of, where you can wander along to the buffet car, stretch your legs, see what the other carriages look like,  or look out of the windows. Here the ends of the carriage are occupied and blocked by sleeping bodies.
Buy a milky sweet chai from the chai walllah for 20 rupees.


At 8.30, as we arrived in Mughul Sarai, a guy next to me asked if I was going to Varanasi, and when I told him I had booked a train, he suggested that it would be much quicker and more convenient to get a taxi. Once off the train I was approached and offered a ride for 600 Rupees which I got down to 400. So I had an interesting ride in a tuk tuk through the chaotic and run-down outskirts of MS, past what appeared to be a massive truck stop, hundreds of them, and then across the Ganges on an impressive multi-arched grey steel bridge and into the equally chaotic outskirts of Varanasi. The Big B Hotel is in a maze of grimy streets but is clean and modern inside. Had an American breakfast of omelette and potatoes with some toast, butter and jam but most importantly a pot of quite acceptable coffee. The room is OK but nothing to get excited about. Definitely no view, the window looks out onto a brick wall a few feet away. Toiletries in the room are basic. 

Green block of soap, guess the other two are shower gel and shampoo

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