I find myself next to Mr Patel, born in India but has lived in Pennsylvania for the last 40 odd years running a convenience store,
although he was a test driver for Audi for many years until an accident
rendered his lower legs practically paralyzed. It was for this reason
he announced he would be taking my lower birth sleeper tier leaving me
to the middle birth, sandwiched (train rule number 4: seat reservations
mean hee-haw!). Everything was going smoothly until a large man plonked
himself opposite us and started preaching in Hindi, I'm not sure what
he was talking about, paranoia insists it was me, but you could tell the
people around us were merely humoring him, engaging him only when he
insisted, usually indicated by a nudge/punch on the leg. An hour or so
passed with the man continuing his boisterous conversation when the
conductor came along, a quick check of his ticket and he was ousted from
our party of 8, leaving us only 1 too many for our birth of 6. As we
started assembling the beds to bunk down for the night I was still intrigued as to where our extra room mate was intending to sleep, then
it became clear, he was.just going to push our shoes aside and sleep on
the floor, see train rule 4.
Its only when your in the dead of night that your other senses start to heighten, when your on a train this is particularly troublesome as the night is filled with the glorious sound of a 60 or so men coughing, spitting and farting their way through twelve hours of train ride. Also as i mentioned we were the first set of seats therefore closest to the toilets, this allowed the through breeze to carry the all to familiar smells through the night air, as a result sleep did not come willingly for me that night.
Having been informed by Mr Patel that I was to assist him off the train at his stop, two hours before mine (which wouldn't be too bad if my stop wasn't at 6am), I received a nudge at 4am. I dutifully helped him off the train and went back to bed, noticing that the floor man had promoted himself to my...sorry Mr Patels berth.
Soon enough we arrived at Ahmadabad, and not really being a tourist hotspot I didn't expect too much hassle on arrival...wrong. Yet again i was set upon by rickshaw drivers eager to make a quick buck on the commission racket. After 15 minutes of trying to persuade them just to drop me in the centre.of town I eventually found a driver who would take my fare. The city was empty at that time, a little eiry. When i was dropped the driver insisted on hanging around, still eager to take me to a hotel, so I just sat on a ledge until he left which was a good 5 minutes. I then begun the trawl through the over priced run down hotels, picking the best of a bad bunch I put my bag down, and tried to get a little quality sleep.
Like i said Ahmadabad is not much of a tourist town, and to be honest you can kind of tell why, the streets are more traffic ridden than they felt and Mumbai, in fact its the first time I swore at traffic, after trying to cross the road for over ten minutes. The few sites are spread far and wide which means being left at the mercy of the rickshaws. Although I must admit the people I had encountered had been very pleasant so far, a female roadside water vendor taking pity on me gifted me a pouch of water and ok it only cost 2 rupees but the sentiment was there. So i decided to get the main site ticked off the list Gandhi's Ashram, he lived here for around 30 years and founded his main ashram along the banks of the river where some of his ashes were later scattered. I jumped in a rickshaw and told him to take me to the Saramvati Ashram, its proper name, or so I thought. After a surprisingly long journey, way off from the lonely planet guide (although that was nothing new), he dropped me off at the gates of A ashram. On entering I couldn't quire help but feel there was something wrong about the whole situation, there was no mention of Gandhi at all so far. Looking hopelessly lost someone pointed me in the direction of the main office, the man then proceeded to give me a guided tour, saying how it was established in 1973, that should have been the main give away as Gandhi would have already been dead for over 20 years, and then showed me to the holy tree which if circumnavigated 7 times would grant you any wish, this of course was a gift bestowed on it by the ashram founder. Finally realizing I was in the wrong place I tried to make a hasty retreat but not before being bombarded by leaflets and books on the ashrams philosophy, the section on sex and masturbation proving too good, for the wrong reasons, to discard with the other paraphernalia.
Hotfooting it into another rickshaw I was driven back into town and to the correct Ashram, on entering the boards clearly signposting Gandhis living quarters, prayer square and the spot the ashes were scattered. Being a free site there was no opportunity to charge depending on race, in true Gandhi philosophy and I have to say the museum and photo gallery were one of the best done of any I've seen in India. His house was preserved as he left it, displaying his fee possessions alongside those of his wife's and the whole place just felt very peaceful, even the nationals who can be described as boisterous at best seemed to display a degree of restraint when it came to queuing and photographing.
I left the ashram having a little faith being restored in Ahmadabad, maybe it wasn't the unforgiving monster I had first branded it as. However, I was unable to build on this faith further as I had a train booked for the next morning for the hill station of Mount Abu, the first of my many stops in the mighty, and hot, Rajasthan.
Its only when your in the dead of night that your other senses start to heighten, when your on a train this is particularly troublesome as the night is filled with the glorious sound of a 60 or so men coughing, spitting and farting their way through twelve hours of train ride. Also as i mentioned we were the first set of seats therefore closest to the toilets, this allowed the through breeze to carry the all to familiar smells through the night air, as a result sleep did not come willingly for me that night.
Having been informed by Mr Patel that I was to assist him off the train at his stop, two hours before mine (which wouldn't be too bad if my stop wasn't at 6am), I received a nudge at 4am. I dutifully helped him off the train and went back to bed, noticing that the floor man had promoted himself to my...sorry Mr Patels berth.
Soon enough we arrived at Ahmadabad, and not really being a tourist hotspot I didn't expect too much hassle on arrival...wrong. Yet again i was set upon by rickshaw drivers eager to make a quick buck on the commission racket. After 15 minutes of trying to persuade them just to drop me in the centre.of town I eventually found a driver who would take my fare. The city was empty at that time, a little eiry. When i was dropped the driver insisted on hanging around, still eager to take me to a hotel, so I just sat on a ledge until he left which was a good 5 minutes. I then begun the trawl through the over priced run down hotels, picking the best of a bad bunch I put my bag down, and tried to get a little quality sleep.
Like i said Ahmadabad is not much of a tourist town, and to be honest you can kind of tell why, the streets are more traffic ridden than they felt and Mumbai, in fact its the first time I swore at traffic, after trying to cross the road for over ten minutes. The few sites are spread far and wide which means being left at the mercy of the rickshaws. Although I must admit the people I had encountered had been very pleasant so far, a female roadside water vendor taking pity on me gifted me a pouch of water and ok it only cost 2 rupees but the sentiment was there. So i decided to get the main site ticked off the list Gandhi's Ashram, he lived here for around 30 years and founded his main ashram along the banks of the river where some of his ashes were later scattered. I jumped in a rickshaw and told him to take me to the Saramvati Ashram, its proper name, or so I thought. After a surprisingly long journey, way off from the lonely planet guide (although that was nothing new), he dropped me off at the gates of A ashram. On entering I couldn't quire help but feel there was something wrong about the whole situation, there was no mention of Gandhi at all so far. Looking hopelessly lost someone pointed me in the direction of the main office, the man then proceeded to give me a guided tour, saying how it was established in 1973, that should have been the main give away as Gandhi would have already been dead for over 20 years, and then showed me to the holy tree which if circumnavigated 7 times would grant you any wish, this of course was a gift bestowed on it by the ashram founder. Finally realizing I was in the wrong place I tried to make a hasty retreat but not before being bombarded by leaflets and books on the ashrams philosophy, the section on sex and masturbation proving too good, for the wrong reasons, to discard with the other paraphernalia.
Hotfooting it into another rickshaw I was driven back into town and to the correct Ashram, on entering the boards clearly signposting Gandhis living quarters, prayer square and the spot the ashes were scattered. Being a free site there was no opportunity to charge depending on race, in true Gandhi philosophy and I have to say the museum and photo gallery were one of the best done of any I've seen in India. His house was preserved as he left it, displaying his fee possessions alongside those of his wife's and the whole place just felt very peaceful, even the nationals who can be described as boisterous at best seemed to display a degree of restraint when it came to queuing and photographing.
I left the ashram having a little faith being restored in Ahmadabad, maybe it wasn't the unforgiving monster I had first branded it as. However, I was unable to build on this faith further as I had a train booked for the next morning for the hill station of Mount Abu, the first of my many stops in the mighty, and hot, Rajasthan.
No comments:
Post a Comment