When we last left off I was leaving Cochin in Kerala for Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu after a most off-putting three days spent being gawked at and chased and harassed. The only train that would take me to Kanyakumari left at 4:30AM from Cochin and so I made a reservation and rose at 2:30, got into a cab and dashed to the train station in the dead of night. The train was late in arriving, and even later in departing. The ticket I held in my hand said I would be seated in the 2nd class sleeper section in a seat in Coach 20. So once the train pulled in I began walking the length of the train to find Coach 20. Coach fourteen, fifteen, sixteen….. seventeen….. eight--- wait, no coach eighteen, no nineteen, and certainly no twenty. WTF. So I get onto coach 17 and try to find someone to help me. Most people were asleep and those that were awake didn’t speak English. I finally find a kind-looking woman and make some gestures to indicate “Am I in the right place?” and show her my seat details. She strings together a sentence in English that basically said “This is the ladies’ carriage, and there’s no assigned seating. Sit anywhere.” So I resign myself to coach 17 and find an open seat. The train is organized in a sort of lopsided dual-sided bench scheme with long padded benches on one side of the aisle and single seats on the other side of the aisle. I find an open single seat across from some nuns and exhale thoroughly. Then I hear the skittering noise of insects and look around to find the carriage absolutely crawling with cockroaches. Small ones, medium ones, and, to my horror, a few big ones…. Oh. My. God.
At this point, the experience of the last 2 days and the train-seating fiasco all became overwhelming and I simply hugged my backpack toward me, obstructed my face, and broke down into silent tears. Luckily, most of the other passengers were asleep, and those that weren’t apparently thought I was just sleeping against my bag and I had one final shred of dignity left as I wept into my backpack.
I cried because of the seat mix-up. Because somewhere in the make-believe world of Indian Railways was my sleeper berth, waiting for me to curl up onto it and snooze away the 8 hour train ride. I cried because I missed home. Because I hate cockroaches. Because the seat I was in was near to the bathroom, that stunk (I never got the nerve to go and look in there, and was just grateful to God that I didn’t feel the urge to use the facilities the entire time I was on the train). I cried because I was ashamed of myself for having broken down. I was disappointed in my traveler hardiness. I thought I was made of more than that. I cried because I was in pain, the ‘padded’ benches were murder on the tailbone and back and so I was constantly trying to smooth out the eternal knots in my back. I cried because I was alone on a train in a strange country and didn’t know what lay ahead. The low point was upon me.
I managed only a few fleeting minutes of sleep here and there throughout the entire train ride. Between children crying, the train stopping and starting, and the infernal cockroaches, I couldn’t rest. Once day broke, however, some gorgeous sceneries presented themselves before me and I snapped photos of the Kerala and Tamil Nadu countrysides that could easily be from a tourism brochure. Mountains, rivers, palms, banana trees, and little villages abounded.
Finally, after the longest 8 hours of my life, the train pulled into Kanyakumari station. The end of the line, and the end of the subcontinent.
Everything changed for me at that point. I got off the train into a whole different world. The wind was cool and powerful coming off the water. The sun was brilliant and dazzling but not scorching. And the people…. the people didn't pay me hardly any attention! It was freeing to blend into the flow of things. Kanyakumari is a popular Indian tourist destination, but for some reason not many western tourists make it down there. I saw about 10 in total during my entire week there. Personally, I don’t get it-- when I was planning my trip to India, I knew that I had to go see Kanyakumari, it was just as essential as seeing the Taj Mahal or the Gateway of India. But it is a trek and I suppose not too many tourists make the effort to get there. For those that do, however, the reward is the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets conceivable and an otherworldly ocean breeze from the 3 converging bodies of water that make up Kanyakumari’s coastline: the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea. Heaven.
Kanyakumari was, and still is, my favourite part of India, and quite possibly one of my favourite places in the world.
Tales from Kanyakumari next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment