I was told on the day we were to leave for Shimla that the train would be leaving at 8am, thus I set an early morning phone call for 5am giving myself plenty of time for breakfast and to reach the railway station in Delhi. I was up at 5am and in the shower when the phone rang for a second time. The train was running late and wouldn’t be leaving until 9.30am. Was I surprised? No. Such is life in India when travelling by public transport.
However, on the plus side I didn’t have to lug my case through the train station, onto the platform or onto the train. All this is done by porters using a trailer attached to a bicycle, or by simply carrying luggage on their heads.
The train had many carriages and was very busy. Our seats had been booked well in advance and we had a table at which to sit and eat a meal that was served to us with a cup of tea. It was like being on a plane, if not better as the scenery was beautiful once we left Delhi and the fog had cleared. (You can read about my time in Shimla in my next blog.)
At 9.30am the train departed Delhi and I organised a game my fellow travellers and I could play. Each person had to give the time the train would arrive at our destination, not necessarily the time on the revised timetable. We played it each time we travelled by train, and it was always won by the men, who insisted it was not luck but good judgement!
Our second train journey was on the UNESCO protected Kalka-Shimla Toy Train, which proved to be an experience and a half, but one I would recommend to anyone visiting the north of India. Moving at a speed of around 25 miles per hour the train goes through 102 tunnels each numbered so passengers know where they are en-route.
We arrived in good time at Shimla’s railway station which is a throwback to colonial times with a waiting room for first and second class passengers, an office for the station master and for the chief commercial inspector, whosoever he might be. To my surprise people just walked across the tracks to take photographs of the Himalayan foothills, no concern for health and safety.
When the train arrived there was an unnecessary scramble for people to board. We had plenty of time to settle ourselves in our carriage and were joined by an Indian family, one of whom told me he and his wife liked to live life to the full, make the most of every day, and, like us, it was their first time on the Toy Train.
They played music from their phones, danced in the aisle, hung out of the doors taking selfies and encouraged the children to ululate very loudly every time we went through a tunnel! To the rear of our compartment one woman was cradling a baby and I thought the infant would not to be able to sleep with all the noise. How wrong was I? The baby slept and slept. She must be used to the hubbub.
In the first carriage a young Sikh sat on the step of the carriage for most of the journey, looking out on the rooftops of the towns we passed and the countryside of pine forests, cacti and terraced farmland. The latter is well tended, litter free and ready for planting. At one station monkeys played by the railway line, one even venturing into the carriage on a quest for food. It was then I noticed the signs for the stations were reminiscent of those in Britain!
Men went up and down the platforms and onto the trains selling food in foil containers or in plastic tubs. Once the food within had been consumed the containers were carelessly thrown out of the window by the Indian passengers. After we had eaten our packed lunch we gathered up our rubbish and stored it in two paper bags, prepared to put it in the bin at the hotel. I was going to discard my banana peel by throwing it out the window believing it biodegradable, but was stopped by an erudite fellow passenger who told me it takes too long to break down and would only add to the detritus that lies along the side of the railway. It went into the bag with the rest of the rubbish.
On the final leg of the journey things quietened down. No more music, singing and dancing, nor hanging out of the door. Not until we came upon a viaduct, one of the famous landmarks en-route. Phones came out and pictures were quickly taken, then passengers returned to their seat and the last hour of the journey was relatively quiet, some even managing a catnap.
The train journey from Chandigarh to Amritsar was much quieter, more like a train journey in Britain although it had its quirks. A man walked up and down the aisles carrying an old milk churn chanting either ‘chaichaichai’ or ‘teacoffee teacoffee’, not separating the words at all. Other young men toted crates of prepackaged foodstuffs, selling to hungry passengers. The Indians are very entrepreneurial, persistently selling their wares, but nobody has yet managed to come up with a money-making idea to clean up the streets and railway lines.
Ludhiana Junction was very busy and the train filled up, but to my surprise the aisle floor was cleaned by two young men, one squirting detergent on the floor, swiftly followed by the second with a cloth mop. (As I stated in my last blog, the Indians are very clean, it is just a shame there is no infrastructure to deal with the litter.). Men continued to sell their wares including samosas and a “breakfast” sandwich. The hotel had provided me with a packed breakfast, a cucumber sandwich which was surprisingly refreshing, fruit, an orange drink and a tub of goods from the bakery, namely sweet biscuits n cakes!
Approaching Amritsar Station the litter was horrendous. Men were urinating up against a wall, and the side streets were a little like dirt tracks. We went through several level crossings, all of which were busy with cars and motorbikes and tuk-tuks lined up ready for the off. Like all the stations we used the platforms are clean and our bags were taken off the train by a posse of men then loaded onto a rather dilapidated coach. All the cakes we hadn’t eaten were given to these hardworking men for their children.
When I reach retirement age in the coming months I am certainly going to avail of my free transport pass at home in Ireland. I don’t really use public transport at the moment, but having experienced the trains in India, I think travelling around Britain and Ireland will be a lot less noisy, a little more comfortable, but not as animated and certainly not as chaotic. However, I may be proved wrong, we shall see!
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India is a country like no other I have visited. To read more about my travels please click on the following links.
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