Only take an overnight bus if you’re desperate

The last leg of my journey had been organised as my last train trip of this adventure. However the journey was too long, and I would get to Mumbai really late in the evening, and I don’t like arriving in the dark to a new place if I can help it. So I cancelled my ticket and booked myself on the coach. 

Once embarked I insisted on taking the lower berth and then spent 15 hours swaying from side to side, as the coach lurched round corners, across potholes and swerving to overtake. Sometimes travel is just hard work....

This was the second largest city on earth!

I have been wanting to go to Hampi for a long time, and it was well worth the wait. These sprawling city ruins, from palaces to temples, watchtowers, markets and elephant houses are incredible. Work is underway across the sites to preserve them, given their world heritage status but the highlight was climbing the 575 steps up to the temple marking the site where Hanuman was born. Luckily at the beginning an Indian woman gave me her stick, as she had descended. So I braved the heat and my vertigo to head up the hill, up ever increasingly steep steps to get to the temple. Well worth the climb, the views were amazing, seeing across the bolder strewn landscape littered with ruins. In the 15th century this was the second largest city, beaten by Beijing, and traders came from Europe, Persia and China to buy gold, diamonds etc. 

You’re taking the bus!

I often feel I take the hardest route on purpose, for challenge, for the greater experience and just because I can. So with my morning free, I took the government bus into Hampi. Almost always I’m the only white foreigner on the bus, or for that matter wherever I am as I do, as I love to head to places a little off the tourist trail. But I do love the social side of transport, invariably someone plucks up the courage to chat, bemused as to why I’m on the bus and not hiring an auto rickshaw or taxi. This kind of chatter never happened in my 25 years of commuting on the jubilee line - there was no chatter at all, especially once everyone had a mobile phone glued to their gaze! 

What’s your birth year?

I arrived in Kamalapur really early. The train to Hospet was on time, and by 8am I had registered at my hotel too early for an available room. So I walked into the Main Street and popped into a coin and bronze trinket shop. After a bit of browsing the owner, who had by then finished the daily blessing of the shop with incense asked me by birth year, then proceeded to search through a large pile of coins. My gift for the day from him was a 1970 coin, which was a really nice gesture.  Shame I didn’t want to buy anything in the shop! 

Citizenship

This is a contentious concept across the world over as nationalism rises. Here demonstrations are countrywide due to the Citizens Amendment Act in December disallowing Muslim citizenship in many cases. In Kochi I joined a rally of Muslim women in Vasco Da Gama Square, who were peacefully and passionately demonstrating about the loss of their citizenship rights.  One of the protests was eager to answer my questions and asked me to pray for them at this difficult time. 

How international we are

So in my block of six berths on my overnight train heading north, we all emerge sleepy eyed from under our Indian Railways sheets. Suddenly there’s 9 of us sitting side by side and opposite and we get chatting and sharing snacks, the fabulous social element to train travel. The retired couple next to me are from Tamil Nadu, now living in Bangalore, and have been visiting family for Christmas.  They have two sons, one working in Germany and the other in Taiwan. And the couple on the aisle seats with a small son once lived in Plymouth working for the council and lastly the retired math teachers son is working in Kings College hospital in London.  How international we are! 

Waiting to hear if my train ticket will be confirmed

It’s peak travel season here and everyone is on the move. Even when I booked this ticket in early November it was not confirmed so I was on waitlist.  And I had to be on this train on the 27th to travel overnight to Mysore, so I was so relieved to see the ticket confirmed late afternoon of my travel, but I’ve boarded trains before still on waitlist and there’s always a way to make it work.

The only time I feel slightly anxious is making sure I’m on the right platform and then to stand by the right carriage. In London you can always tell the savvy commuters, who know where to stand to be at the carriage doors. Here the trains are giant beats, perhaps 20 carriages long and believe me I’ve only done it once where I’ve had to traverse every carriage with a rucksack, managing to bump into every protruding foot of the slumbering passengers. So I normally head straight to the station masters office to get the info, then wait in the ladies waiting room, and then find a friendly family! I hit the jackpot, and found a family who were in the same carriage as me, so we waited together until the delayed train thundered into the station at 10.15pm.  The husband questioned my solo travel, asking “you have no one to help you?” I’m not sure he realises but he’s part of my helpful gang!