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Day 56-58
The girls write in their journals about the joys and horrors of the Ganges and then we are ready to leave the holy city of Varanasi - the oldest city on Earth (said Mark Twain). Clover's journal is more a badly put together menu than a literary masterpiece - what she had for lunch is the main theme. She struggles a little with the acquisition of language and most of her written words are a bit consonant heavy. She's not so interested in vowels. She heard me describe the heat once as horrendous and translated it into her journal as 'the hete was hrnds'. I loved that. You can still pronounce it almost perfectly. H-R-N-D-S. A family joke was born and many things in India have since been described as HRNDS.
Our last night in Varanasi involved getting the overnight train to Patna (not Ayrshire, honestly) which was three hours late. This required us to sit on bags on the platform for the entire time as the monsoon lashed around us, bringing the rats out. We realised the delay had caused us to miss our ongoing connection so spent the 6 hour journey, when it eventually begun, trying to work out ways of making it onwards. Imagine our joy when we got off in Patna, three hours late and found our ongoing connection was also late! Delighted. Train was due to leave at 4am so we had an hour or so to kill which was dull but maturely endured. 5am came. 6am came. Spirits started to flag and tempers started to flare. We were literally on the platform with a population of around 3000 others. Nowhere to buy food or drink. Nowhere to sit, no air conditioning. No toilets. I joined the misery of the ladies waiting room with the girls; Clover slept briefly on a stone floor on top of my pashmina. A nasty old hag reproached me for leaving a cup of tea on the floor. I was flabbergasted. Outside the front door we would be knee deep in s*** and flies and death and she is angry about a cold cup of tea! Rufus wandered about the platform aimlessly becoming more and more irate. By 7am I was sending him to the ticket office every 15 minutes to 'see what is happening'. Nothing was happening. 8am I was in tears, feeling sick and lightheaded, sweaty and stiff. Hadn't slept now for 24 hours. 9am and the worst of me came out. The part that shouts about money, not putting up with this s***, having choices, demanding a driver and generally being a spoilt brat. My fellow Indian passengers watched in amusement as I screamed and sobbed and gesticulated wildly about the failings of this ridiculous dump of a country. Every train ever built came and went through those platforms - many made in Rutherglen which raised a faint smile. On our last chant of 'we are definitely leaving after this one' the train duly chugged into the station and we got on. Our HRNDS evening was over.
Nice little train winding through West Bengal was scenic, very green with miles and miles of banana trees. I remain astonished at the amount of people on the streets, in the fields, at the stations - I know by now that there is a population problem in India but it really is incredible to see again and again, no matter how industrious or remote you travel. We got a private four berth cabin on the Mahananda 'Express' (we worked out Daddy could run it faster) and got some sleep at last. I refused to pee in the Trainspotting style squatter toilet so Rufus fashioned a 'she-wee' (Google it if you're over 40) with a penknife and a plastic water bottle. He also had to regularly trot along to the toilet to empty the offending vessel. The girls thought this was hilarious and shrieked about it constantly. This part of our journey took 15 hours and the highlights included our argument with the catering-wallah about an egg curry which required the input of every passenger and an interpreter, four transsexuals in saris, the derailed train out the window and another copy of Indian Cosmopolitan sold by a crippled child. (How to make your man the perfect Biryani! 1000 table decorations for your arranged marriage!). I don't use the word crippled lightly but it really feels like the correct language of physical impairment just doesn't accurately describe the series of baffling injuries and deformities these children seem to possess.
Got to our hotel exhausted at midnight after 30 hours of solid travelling. Tomorrow we get the famous toy train to Darjeeling which takes another 9 brain and bum numbing hours to reach the hill station. The girls and Rufus are very excited. I am not good with heights and am very anxious at what Lonely Planet describe as 'a precipice-topping, vertigo-inducing trip for the brave'. I can't manage the lift to screen 11 at Cineworld. The train has to climb an astonishing 2000m over a mere 80km in 9 hours which is like, loads of vertical metres an hour. I don't think I've ever been to 2200m. Does the Skybar in LA count? Rufus kindly tried to buy me Valium for the trip but was eyed suspiciously by the quack-pharmacist so I'm doing it cold turkey. I hope there's a bar.
I was delighted to read in the Indian Times that Emma Thompson is apparently taking her 10 year old daughter out of school for a year to go travelling, specifically in India. Am thrilled and vindicated. I like to think she found my blog.
Varanasi, Vertigo and Valium. Think I've found the title of my memoirs.
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