Indian Transport

William Pretty

Following a night sleeping on coconut husk pads (mattresses) on the floor of a church, the prospect  of a 15 hour, relaxing train ride was mere bliss. However in our beloved India fashion that was not to be, instead of getting on the train at 2:45pm we managed to spend a delightful 6 hours camped out in NJP railway station waiting for a coach to replace our train, all the while depleting the local vendors of food and drink, doing laps of the train station or in my case falling asleep on the floor in a platonic spoon with Lachie that was nothing but a necessary turn of events. When the bus finally arrived spirits were high and continued to lift as we calculated in our supposed 18 hour bus ride, we could play the playlist a minimum of 5 times.

I would love to say the bus ride was bliss and I just fell asleep to the gentle bouncing of our coach but my mother taught me to never lie, so instead here is the truth. It took us 30 minutes before the drivers needed a 50 minute break (the first of many) with the general consensus being they needed to buy a map, proven correct a few moments ago when the driver chose a road with a 'bridge' that is best described as absent, or just now as Mr. Jordan shouted to Tom from the back of the bus "Tom, do you want to tell the driver he is going the wrong way, he's going north instead of south", but this is all part of the fun, as Mr. Jordan keeps reminding us with that ever present smile. 

One of the most exciting moments was as everyone was slowly drifting to sleep, the brakes suddenly locked up and the smell of burnt tyres dominated the air as we skidded to a halt in front of a huge sign saying “Road Closed”. Well, I know I shouldn't complain in all honesty because at least Indian roads and drivers keep things exciting and uncertain, but near death situations are generally where I tend to draw a line, for measures of sanity. Now on the subject of Indian country roads, they would be better suited as snow mobiles constantly causing the bus to bounce and judder, over powering your will to sleep, leaving you nervous as to when the next time you could go airborne in your seat.

We are now at hour 15, it's 9am on Friday and I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel that is Varanasi. But we are in India, so I will wait and see what happens in the closing kilometres before I become truly hopeful of getting there with my body, mind and soul intact...

Through the train being cancelled, in search of a silver lining I have come to the conclusion that we have achieved one thing: set a new record for the longest journey by any India Immersion programme, ending at 23 hours and 30 minutes. For some context that is longer than a direct flight from Auckland to Singapore plus Singapore to Kolkata.