If you’ve been following us you’ll know that not all of our travels have been straightforward. Until now that has been confined to buses, Tuk-Tuks and taxis. Even although all three have proved efficient ways of getting around in India,
I’ve already written about our experience of all of them in different posts. The taxis and Tuk-Tuks, their drivers anyway, have driven me to the platforms (Uber and Ola). I never had a real need for them back home, but here…
Anyone who knows me, knows I hate the platforms and their ‘irresponsible’ monopolies. I haven’t spoken to many local people who use Uber or Ola, but I’m assured there are plenty who do. The young Indian man we spoke to on our last train journey explained that drivers know he’s from out of state and he can have a similar problem getting a fair price. For us, Uber has taken most of the frustration out of taxi and Tuk-Tuk rides. as I’ve said, they are efficient enough, if you ignore the extra 10-20 minutes, or more that you’ll need to ‘negotiate’ a fair price, but even that disappears with Uber. You also have the luxury of Uber sending them the route. Communicating where your going can be as tiresome as fixing a price. Uber’s cut? I just can’t feel sorry for the drivers driven to the platforms. I’ve even shown independents the Uber price just before pushing the button to confirm, and offered them 20% more. Nope! They still insist on double or more, They’re even more pig-headed than me.
Anyway, back to the train. Those journeys have been amazing. Even our 8-10 hour journeys have been more punctual than most of the 1-3 hour ones back home. However, today, disaster struck.
This time we were heading to Goa on the overnight train. We’d had problems with accommodation in Goa and we did ponder the ‘The Reverend D Wayne’ wondering if we should just ‘not go to Goa!’ But the train timings were a big plus: board the train at five in the evening and Arrive in Goa at six next morning. Even if we were a bit tired, a whole day to look for a hotel.
Woke up this morning and tried again to check if our seats were showing. Still no seats, but the refresh had another message flashing in red. ‘Train Delayed’ - 10 hours. It wasn’t ‘the last train to Mashville’, but it felt just as bleak. Now everything was up in the air. Cancel Goa; cancel Hampi and stay longer in Goa; fly to Goa; fly to Kerala. It was a frantic two hours and then STOP. Let’s go for breakfast.
Taking stock - the new train time was now 3:30am, so what are the possibilities. We asked at the Centro, where we were staying, and we could have our room for another night. Up at midnight to get a taxi to the station. It would do, but didn’t make a lot of sense. Then I remembered that some of the bigger stations have ‘Retiring Rooms’. We frantically went through the ponderous ‘indiarail’ website, how could it not be ponderous - I’m sure I’ve read it’s the biggest rail network in the world, so that must need a pretty big website, especially with all the details and statistics they choose to provide. Just don’t try it on your phone, because it has more pop-up for more crap than you’ll ever meet anywhere else on the internet. Even when you get to their ‘Catchpa’, every keystroke, even the shift key to enter numbers, interrupts your next keystroke with a video for some crap game on the google store, you might get back to where you were, or you’ll have to start again and whack-a-mole your way through it. Even after that it might not load.
I found a phone number:
‘Yes sir. You have your PNR number?’ ‘I’ve got it yes, yes. I’ll just find it?’ ‘I’m sorry sir, we cannot just hold this line, you will have to call back with the details we need.’ CLICK!
Bloody hell, that’s not the cheat sheet they get for the call centres they man for back home. Next attempt was better:
‘Yes, there is availability.’ ‘Can I book it?’ ‘No sir, you cannot book it here. You will have to login and book it.’
We found the listing and the availability of the ‘Deluxe Room #3 with AC’, but book it? That’s impossible, if you’re not an Indian Citizen. Well, I’m sure somewhere in that labyrinth you actually can, but find it I couldn’t. It was again time to ask for some local help.
It always feels a bit off to ask someone whose already offered you a solution - yes you can stay here. Well…could you help us book this instead, please? The guy on the desk at Centro was great, but even for him it took two attempts to secure the ‘Deluxe Room #3’ and he had to use his personal payment method as it wouldn’t accept international cards. We only had the room for twelve hours (3 in the afternoon until 3am). In the end the train was delayed for over 13 hours arriving, after six in the morning. Without that room we would have had to spend all of that time on the platform with our bags. Instead, we just dumped our bags and jumped in a Tuk-Tuk.
It was off to ‘The Rooftop Project’, a rooftop bar where we’d spent the previous afternoon watching the kites soar and swoop over Pune.
This gave us another treat that evening: our first sunset in India. I know, it sounds odd but even although we’ve never had clouds, the sun has never appeared as a distinct celestial body. Instead only as a fuzzy brightness behind the smog. Even in Jaisalmer where we’d had a more distinct impression of the sun it’s disappearance into the smog with over an hour of daylight left never felt like a sunset. This was different, it was recognisably a real sunset.
We got back to our room on the first floor of the train station at about 8pm and watched ‘Heat and Dust’. We’d bought it to stream for just such a moment in India. Our room was far from ‘Deluxe’ and constant station announcements and the blaring of train horns assured us we had no chance of anything resembling a restful evening. Still, this spartan cell was a wonderful respite. We even managed to rig the computer up to the telly.
In the end we still had to spend three hours on the platform, but that’s not a lot for India. Now we are on the train heading south to Goa, the Sunset State.
