Leading up to our stop in India, all of the students had been told repeatedly that India is like nowhere else in the world, that it evades description, that it will change us forever. I don’t know about the last part, but it is definitely the most ‘alien’ place I’ve been to yet. Michael and I decided to eschew visiting Delhi, like most of the other students, because we wanted to get away from the chaos and the heat both of which had been constant throughout all of the cities in Southeast Asia and even more-so in Chennai as we quickly found out. Instead we planned to go to Ooty, formerly a British hill station where the British who ran the state of Tamil Nadu would escape from the sweltering heat of summer in Madras (now called Chennai). Ooty is located in the Nilgiri mountains which are famous for tea and eucalyptus oil.
I felt a lot of trepidation about India and I didn’t know whether or not I was looking forward to it or dreading it. That we would soon be in India meant that we were leaving the Southeast and East Asian countries I had been looking forward to most on this trip (and ended up really enjoying). India also meant that Michael and I would be all on our own since we did not choose an SAS-sponsored trip. Everything on the SAS trips ran smoothly, but on our own anything was possible. As we would find out later, everything did not run smoothly, partly due to Indian incompetence and partly due to our own forgetfulness. That aside, we both had fun and it gave me a taste of what India has to offer (both good and bad things). One day I hope to go back, particularly to the Himalayan states of northern and northeastern India.
The morning we arrived in Chennai I woke up suddenly before my alarm went off and noticed a horrible smell, a combination of sewage and car exhaust, and I knew we were in India. The smell was so bad that I didn’t think I would be able to fall asleep again. Thankfully I did fall back to sleep but unfortunately that would not be the last time I would smell the unique aroma of India. The morning of our arrival at port was routine by now, Michael and I packed what we would need for the next 4 days and waited until it was our turn to pick up our Indian customs forms and our passports.
As soon as we had our passports and customs forms in hand we grabbed our bags and walked to the gangway where we would leave the ship. Leaving the comfortable air-conditioning of the ship I was greeted with a furnace-blast of heat. From our departure in Thailand to our arrival in India 4 days later I had not gone outside on the ship because the heat and humidity have been terrible. Unfortunately there was no escaping it now.
The port we were located at was not meant for passenger ships, it was surrounded by warehouses, tractor-trailers, and various pieces of industrial equipment. While we were on the ship an announcement was made telling everyone to make sure that once we walked in between the two warehouses in front of the ship we should go left and absolutely not go right because it posed a security risk. With those words in my mind I wondered what awaited us past the warehouses. As it turned out the only thing on the other side of the warehouses was more warehouses, stacks of giant steel plates, and a bunch of rickshaw drivers and various suspicious looking characters.
Unsure what to do Michael and I accepted the offer of an auto-rickshaw (a motorized rickshaw) driver to take us wherever we wanted to go. Our plan was to eat at a restaurant in a fancy hotel that was recommended by our Lonely Planet India guidebook. The driver agreed to take us there, or at least that is what we thought he said, so off we went. After a few minutes we came upon a gate with at least 50 Semester At Sea students standing around it. The rickshaw stopped and the driver told us that we had to get off here. We ended up paying the equivalent of $5 for barely a 5 minute rickshaw ride that took us to the front gate of the harbor. That was the first of two times we would get ripped off that day.
After waiting in line in the sweltering heat for 45 minutes we got another rickshaw that took us to the hotel. The driver absolutely insisted on waiting until we finished eating after which he would take us shopping. By the time we got to the hotel my nose and eyes were full of dirt and grit. Apparently there are no automobile emission regulations in India and as a result its major cities are the most polluted in the world. Chennai made Beijing’s air seem clean by comparison and yet Chennai has ¼ the population of Beijing. To make matters worse, in India everyone uses their horns all of the time. In the U.S. using your car horn is strongly discouraged but in India you can be ticketed for not using it in some cases. Since rickshaws are open on the sides a ride through Chennai resulted in a pounding headache from the car exhaust fumes and the constant squealing of horns.
It was a relief to finally get to the hotel and have lunch, especially since we had missed breakfast on the ship. Lunch was pretty good, though we ended up having better meals later. The one good thing about eating in India is that about 80% of the population is vegetarian so most restaurants only serve vegetarian food so you don’t need to worry about being served strange or uncooked meats. Interestingly, I never got sick from the food in India, nor did Michael. Some people I know who have been to India told me that I was guaranteed to get sick despite my best efforts to avoid it. On the contrary, I really don’t know how you can get sick from the food or water in any foreign country as long as you follow the simple rules of avoiding tap water, ice cubes, and uncooked fruits and vegetables.
After lunch Michael and I went to a shopping mall right next to the hotel to find an ATM and waste some time before we had to go the airport for our flight to Coimbatore. In the mall the merchants stood outside their stores and tried to convince passersby to come in and take a look around. It was certainly different from the usual malls back home. Mike and I got conned into visiting some Persian rug store where we bought some gifts (not rugs though). Afterwards we took a taxi to the airport which, thanks to the traffic problems in Chennai, took over an hour.
We arrived in Coimbatore in the evening, picked a random hotel in our Lonely Planet guidebook and checked in. We chose it because it was right across the street from the train station, if it wasn’t for that we probably would have left. The paint was peeling off the walls of the bathroom and the bed was rock-hard due to the paper-thin mattress. This was also the first time we experienced Indian hospitality which is so ridiculous that it becomes annoying. A boy showed us to our room, explained how to turn the lights on with a switch on the wall, showed us where the bathroom is, and turned on the TV for us. It was nice of him but I’m sure we could have figured it out by ourselves.
We woke up at 4:30 A.M. and went to the train station to wait for the 5:00 A.M. train. The lobby of the train station was filled with sleeping people, beggars, the homeless, and those that just didn’t want to miss their train. When our train came we had no idea which car to get into. People were unloading hay and sacks of produce from some cars and other cars looked air-conditioned. We walked into an air-conditioned first-class car and were quickly told that we did not have the appropriate ticket. So we moved to a sleeping car with metal bunk beds, dirty mattresses, and steel bars on the windows. It looked like one of those prison cars that the Nazis used to transport Jews and other minorities to concentration camps.
I was so tired and just wanted to take a nap but I was afraid we would miss our stop. After less than an hour we came to a station that Mike assured me was where we should get off. We wandered around the station trying to find the ticket office for the toy train (so-called because it was a minature steam engine train) we would be taking to Ooty, deep in the Nilgiri Hills. As we made our way to the ticket office a white college-aged girl (who looked as out of place as we did) approached us looking distraught and asked, “Do you speak English?” When we told her that we did she looked relieved. She proceeded to explain that the person at the ticket office told her that there were no more seats available on the toy train. When she exclaimed, “Now I’ll have to take an 8 hour bus ride with a bunch of smelly Indians” we realized just how upset she was.
I couldn’t figure out what country she was from but the girl had a strange accent. We soon found out that Celine was French and had been backpacking with friends through India for several months. She had more recently been spending a week traveling on her own and it was clear that the solo travel was getting to her. We decided to walk over to the toy train, find a seat and sit down, and see what happens. Celine kept asking us, “It is okay if ze sit down but have no tickets? What happens if some persons come to check for ze ticket?” The Indian guys in the car we sat in assured us that everything would be okay and that, if anything, we could bribe someone 200 rupees and stay where we were. All Celine’s worrying amounted to nothing though since no one ever came and asked for our tickets.
The train ride however, was torture. Spending seven hours in a tiny train car meant for five with nine other people is not something I’d like to repeat. The Indians we shared the car with were friends from a local town who decided to take the train together to Ooty. They spend most of the trip laughing and talking loudly. They had an interesting concept of personal space. When one of them wanted to stretch out their legs they would just lay on the others or insist you spread your legs a bit so they could put their feet on your seat opposite them. Celine spent the entire trip obviously upset and when one of the Indian men kept looking at the tags on her backpack she would glare at him.
At one point one of them literally took a bottle of water out of my hands and drank the remaining water that I desperately wanted. They did offer us food such as banana chips but it did not seem like appropriate compensation. We made stops every 30 minutes or so in order to stretch and take in the scenery. I had to go to the bathroom the entire time but since no one knew how long we would stop at each station or scenic point I didn’t want to leave the train. As we went higher and higher into the hills the palm trees gave way to conifers and the air cooled dramatically. It felt wonderful, like coming into an air-conditioned building after spending hours in the summer heat. When we left Chennai the day before it was around 90F and when we arrived in Ooty it was in the mid 60s. The hills were wreathed in mist and covered in neatly manicured tea plantations. This was the first time I’d ever seen tea plantations in person, and since tea is my favorite beverage, it was exciting.
It was such a relief to finally get off the train when we arrived at the Ooty train station 7 hours later. Mike and I took a taxi to the hotel that had been reserved for us. This is when our problems began. The only proof I had that a room was reserved for us was an e-mail from the travel agent and even that didn’t say very much. The staff had no idea that we had reserved a room; they had absolutely no record of it. Frustrated, and with no way to call overseas to find out what happened, we agreed to check in to a room even though we were supposed to have had one reserved anyway. They showed us to several rooms but each one had a problem with it. The last room had no toilet paper or shower, in its place were two faucets and two buckets.
Mike and I asked if we could use the phone and they explained that we would have to walk down the road about ten minutes and we would see a stand on the side of the road with a phone that can make overseas calls. On the way down the road we passed uniformed school kids and a herd of cows. The air was cool and misty but it didn’t help me feel any better about the current situation. We called another hotel in our guidebook, one that was supposed to be “high-end”, and we were told that they had some vacancies.
Back at the other hotel we were notified that our cash advance would be kept and that we would have to pay for a day’s stay even though we “stayed” in the hotel for barely an hour. It was mid-afternoon and at this point we just wanted to eat something because we hadn’t eaten since the previous day. We paid the bill, thanked them for nothing, and took an auto-rickshaw to the other hotel, which turned out to be very nice. We were so tired that we fell asleep as soon as we checked into our room. Later we walked around and took a look at the stores on the main road and then picked a random Indian restaurant. Eating in India was interesting since the menus had no English descriptions and the restaurant staff usually did not speak English well enough to discuss menu items. After a while you begin to identify certain words and get an idea for what is what, but most of the time you guess and hope you guessed right.
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