Luke and Romy's Journey through South East Asia + India: Impressions of India

“Life changing”, “mind blowing”, “earth shattering”, “transformation of the soul” – all these may be used to describe India’s profound influence on the modern-day traveller. In fact, it has been having these effects on travellers for thousands of years, and we have found out that nothing has changed.

The organised chaos which is India is a never-ending pool of amazement and surprises. Daily one is amazed by how inefficient things are, but then at the same time, no problem is too great to solve. It is a source of constant frustration, but also wonder. As long as you have an open mind, and are operating at 100% (i.e. not sick or down in any way), India will be what you make of it.

A further 10 pages could be filled with a broad-scale philosophical breakdown and analysis of India’s innumerable quirks, but, like experiencing India, it only all starts to make sense once you dig a little deeper, release yourself to situations out of your control, that you see, smell, taste, sense, and feel a fraction (let’s not give ourselves too much credit) of what India is all about.

So to specifics, and one of the great topical themes: India’s public transport!!!

It does not matter how amazing a country’s road network is. If it has a population of 1.2billion people, there will NEVER be enough trains, buses, trucks, taxis, tuk-tuks, or cars. Yet, it doesn’t help when the main highways are no bigger or better than the M13, and 90% of the roads are 1 lane either way. With the % of population that can afford vehicles, there are too many vehicles on the road as it is, hence it takes an aeon to get anywhere. Congestion is just a fact of life.

The road outside Delhi Railway Station - Pahar Ganj. It's a bit difficult to capture, but it is a game of Russian Roulette trying to cross here!

General congestion in Pahar Ganj, Main Bazaar Road

Typical street-side activity

ROAD FACTS: 18 hours to do 300kms, Hardiwar – Manali. 14hours to do 195kms, Kaza – Manali. Bus with Pneumonic drill suspension, Manali – Mcleod Ganj.

India has one of the world’s largest railway networks. The only areas that aren’t covered are in North India, and that is due to a small engineering problem called the Himalayas. You can catch 3 day trains from the West to the East, or from North (Delhi) to South (Kerala). A fantastic way to travel, it provides you with an authentic experience, as the people sharing your cabin will no doubtedly be local, and so it is somewhat of a lucky packet!

RAILWAY FACTS: Average number of people on board an 1800 max passenger train during rush hour, 7000. Number of people using the Delhi underground (Delhi Metro) during rush hour, 4 million.

We found this out the hard way in Delhi. We wanted to get back to Pahar Ganj, the crazy cheap traveller ghetto, and decided to use the Metro from the main junction station, Ranjiv Chowk. WOW, it was insane. I have never seen such a high concentration of people. We were standing in a mob of locals, all pushing and shoving (there is NO SUCH THING as a queue in India), waiting for the train to arrive. Once it pulled in, pandemonium broke out. For starters, the train was packed to overflowing, but before anyone had started to get out, the Metro-thirsty locals all pushed forward to get onto the train. Naturally a deadlock was produced, and Romy and I were just trying to stay upright and not get trampled. I never thought I’d be in that environment. You see those sorts of clips on Youtube or email, but to be right in the middle of it.. And the thing is, that is what they deal with EVERYDAY of their lives, but it is ok. Organised chaos. They all will get home, eventually. You just can’t afford to be bothered by the elbow in your ribcage, the foot on your shoe, the smelly breath on your face, or the pit of fury caressing your nose.

Delhi Central Train Station - evening time.

Every single carriage is jam-packed with people like this. People spilling out of every nook and cranny.

The stations themselves are a sight to behold. A colossal mix of passengers, porters, merchants, dogs, luggage, and let’s not forget cows. The cows are the freest sentient beings in India. The could chose to walk the circumference if they wanted, and nobody would stop them or even ask why (not that you would get an answer). Anyway, this results in the average person having to constantly avoid stepping in cow dung. It is everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

Therefore, at stations you find: thousands of people rushing to make the train in time, porters rushing around with 50kgs of luggage on their heads, cows milling about, shitting everywhere. Dogs eating shit and anything else they can find, Whole families of 20 locals sleeping on the platforms on pieces of cardboard. Barely visible with the amount of flies on them, rubbish strewn everywhere. The smell of human faeces and arid smell of B.O, exponentially made worse by the 90% humidity in 40 degree heat. Incessant gawking due to our “exoticness.”

It is an experience within itself, and it you need to be operating at 100% in order to handle the craziness. So imagine having to deal with just such a morning train journey, when just a few short hours ago, you were blasting out of both ends any piece of solid or amount of liquid available in your system. It happened when we had to go from Delhi to Agra, and the Belly of Delhi struck with all its viciousness. I thought the Belly of Doom was going to kill me, in truth, waiting to get on the train almost did. Thank you Romy Nightingale. Without you, surely I would have perished.

And then you have the public buses…

How these rust buckets and racing slicks are allowed to be on the roads, who knows. As the pictures will attest, they give you ZERO encouragement. Without literary coating, they are pieces of shit. But any bus trip you will make will give you some of the more lasting memories.

The familiar chaos ensues at the bus station when a bus arrives to pick up passengers. Before the bus has pulled into the parking lot, a hoard of locals try storm the bus, rendering the on board passengers stuck. The driver, instead of coming to a halt, swings around dramatically, and into the middle of nowhere (at this point a few locals are hanging desperately to the door handle, about to be flung to the tar. The driver then ridiculously proceeds to do a 10 point turn, eventually coming to a halt in the middle of nowhere (usually blocking some other bus from coming in our going out), whilst most of the locals have managed to storm the ship and loot all available seats. IT MAKES NO SENSE!! And it happens EVERY TIME!!

You have to join them if you want to beat them. And usually we are able to get a seat. OR, especially for the longer journeys, you can do the CIVILISED thing, buy tickets in advance, and then when you get on your bus and you have 2 grannies, 1 spitting youth and 2 spitting workers on your 2 seats, you can show them your seat numbers and politely tell them to shove off. Organised chaos I tell you. Those buses are ALWAYS full, from start to finish.

Specimen "A", what a beaut!

Specimen "B"

This bus we caught from Agra to the ancient city of Fatephur Sikri. Top speed couldn't have been more than 40km/h before the whole thing shook like a super-charged vibrator.

A summary of the more interesting bus trips:

Hardiwar – Manali. This was a night bus. Left at 4pm, arrived 10am. 18 hours!! HORRENDOUS!! The bus only had bench seats. As usually my knees were by my ears. As usual, all aboard (men and women), were constantly coughing, spluttering, hoicking, and spitting. So no such thing as sleeping. And it was our first introduction to roads with many many hairpin bends as we climbed up and down into the Himalayas. Our first driver was great, but the second was gung-f’ing-ho, and attacked bends like Sebbastian Loeb. This resulted in white knuckles and grey hair for us, and motion sickness for the band of brothers in the back. They were chundering all over the show. And with a habit of keeping all the windows open, unless you need to spit, the aroma , coupled with the sound effects, was simply lovely.

Manali – Kaza (Spiti Valley). Day bus. 12 hours to do 195kms (14 on the way back). Our first taste of the mountain roads and passes that have been built to reach the most inaccessible and remote villages. As the pictures on facebook show, the scenery was incredible. If you can handle the sensation of being tossed around like a piece of rice in a salt shaker, the bus trip is bearable as it is a pleasure to just take it all in. Wow. This trip goes up and over the Rohtang Pass, open only a few months each year, at 4000m, then Kunzum La Pass, at 4500m, and from the lush green of Manali and the Lahul Valleys, into the rain-shadow desert of Spiti Valley. This whole region is a network of valleys, where you could literally spend months in, exploring different villages, climbing different mountains.

Going up and down the massive passes, you have to have nerves of steel. The buses themselves may be pieces of shit, the roads may only be wide enough to fit 1 or 1.5 vehicles (another hugely frustrating gem of Indian inefficiency), but the drivers are brilliant.

An example of the kinds of roads that cause chundering and an average speed of 15km/h. This was on the road between Kaza and Mud in Spiti Valley. See Romy's facebook album for more pictures of this incredible part of India.

More pretty scenery.

Snuff! The Spiti Valley has a largely Tibetan feel due to refugees etc. These ballies are wearing traditional hat.

Our mountain bus! 12 hours on this guy. We are parked at the Kunzum La pass, where all vehicles make a loop around a sacred Gompa, for blessing for the rest of the journey. Prayer flags are then hung on the fence. A special place.

Indian inefficiency creates problems. But no problem is too large for the Indians to solve. Makes sense right?

These drivers will be able to nurse the bus past a truck on the right hand side, a rock in the middle of the road/dirt track, and a 200m precipice on the left hand side, and then laugh and spit afterwards. They will reverse to within a millimetre of impending doom to let a series of vehicles through. It is not so much fun whilst it is happening, but there skill really is amazing. And what makes it more of a feat, is that they don’t really have side mirrors, as these will just be smashed off in the chaotic and narrow streets of town. We’ve also seen cows walk aimlessly into parked bikes, knocking them to the floor, walking into a side mirror just takes it right off! Instead, the bus conductor dons a whistle, and he will blow that thing and be the eyes and ears of the bus driver. Great teamwork.

On the return trip, the bus was full as a result of what I’ve describe earlier. I spent the first 1.5 hours standing! (We were lucky, we had met some Israelis who had spent 12 hours sitting on their bags on the middle isle!) We had to deal with a flat tire, 30 men watching, 1 man changing. I had an old granny sleeping on my shoulder, Romy couldn’t sit back because there was a guy with his arms wrapped around her chair – he was sitting on his friends lap however. Then you get people standing down the isle, ass in faces, coughing in your face. At one stop, 3 foreigners climbed aboard with all this hectic climbing equipment, bags, oh and 2 dogs! And no one even blinks an eye (staring is common practice). And that is another Indian gem: expect ANYTHING. Nothing is too strange.

"Who will budge first.. the truck driver vs bus driver and irate passengers. The guy with the cowboy hat actually got out and started shouting and gesturing until the truck had no choice but to reverse until a piece of land wide enough for both vehicles was found. This happens constantly. With up to 10 other vehicles behind, it can take forever. Patience is a virtue!

Nice trucky nice trucky...

Lastly, our 10 hour trip from Manali to Dharamsala (where the Dalai Lama is in residence), was on the worst rust bucket of them all. I fantasised that it could be a ‘racing’ bus on low profiles. In reality, it simply didn’t have any suspension. It felt like sitting on the handles of a pneumatic drill. See the photo’s to see this beaut.

Think these buses operated in Thailand in the 80's..

Romy improvising to keep the back of the seat off her lap.

Kiff funky interior though. Smelt funky too.

Low-rider!

Look of joy!

Windows held in place with putty! It rained on the way to Dharamsala, and rivers were pouring in, luckily not on our side!

The stories could go on, but as there is so much more to each of the above events , so to there is so much more to India than its transport….. Some more of which will be shared soon. I will however leave you with some photo's of various overloaded people carriers..

Auto-rickshaw. Designed for 4, they can in fact fit +-12. I experienced on like this in Chitrakut. 5 of us in the front! I was half sitting on the driver's lap, had one guy on my lap, and he had another guy half on his lap. Just had to laugh.