Eastern Comfort

After weeks of contemplating on a travel destinations and a much rushed preparation once the target was decided on we set off to India on a regular winter Saturday. It was only regular though because the airport was locked down just the day before and snow only brought the country to halt the day after, but that given Saturday was just plain average. Following a "last call" transfer in Cairo we landed Sunday in the AM in Mumbai, and being too tired to fully take in the experience we were just pushed through customs and money exchange counters to be picked up by our pre-arranged driver. The heat and humidity was dazzling just as the traffic with no rules and the amount of people living on the streets right next to broken down huts right next to luxury apartments. Our hostel was somewhere in between, in something which seemed like a dirty alley at that time. Settling in went fine, we scored a Lonely Planet guide for the day and set out for the first train ride of the day. It seemed a bit crazy, yes, but the 8 rupees ticket vs the 400 for the taxi made it an easy choice. The station was "close", so we walked, an experience in itself, taking in the noise, traffic, dogs, crows and people living everywhere among trash ubiquitous. Strangely enough the smell wasn't half as bad as suggested by fellow travellers :) So after the short 2-3 km walk we reached the station, we eventually figured out which queue the ticket booth was and fortunately the clerk spoke good enough English to sell us our tickets. Of course almost everyone speaks English and in general is very helpful from plain men to fully armed soldiers, but we didn't know that yet :)
And the train... Schedule is in Hindi and English but sure seemed Greek to us - stations are abbreviated to one letter, fast and slow trains mix on all tracks regardless of destination, but it can be figured out. As for the rolling stock, in Hungary, similar suburban trains are smaller and more narrow but otherwise similar. Of course back home the doors are closed during the ride and people tend to stay inside the cars without jumping on and off moving trains at the station, but otherwise it's just the same :) In the city we jumped off at the Mumbai Central station just to find a helpful guard who knew Hungarian football history surprisingly well and guided us to the hangar-lookalike ticket office just fine. Of course it was full of stray dogs, like most open buildings, and did not have the service we were looking for. So we just started walking around, passing some parks where locals were playing cricket in their all white uniforms, next to the grubby homeless and the countless motorcycles parked at the side of the road. Very confusing. But we got to the Gate of India in the end, a nice arc de triomph from the British times, surrounded by countless inland tourists. This is all right next to the recently terrorised Taj hotel so military presence is ample - safe or scary, who knows :) going further towards the old Victoria Terminus, another example of the crazy mix of Victorian and Indian architecture, which partially being renovated so hard to see the full beauty (I'll post pictures when I can) After that we strolled through some nice parks in the evening followed by nice, dark alleys :) It's safe for sure, but there's people sleeping everywhere on the street, thrash everywhere, sometimes set on fire... So safe, but not that comfortable :) we took the evening train back to the hostel, it was horribly crowded, it was a bit hard to get down with having to elbow your way out and then try to jump off faster than the people jumping up. Fun :) we got to the hostel just fine and fell asleep like a log after tens of hours staying awake.

To be continued, hopefully we can catch up with the events as they are happening. We're already in Jaipur, the Pink City, with Amber Fort and maybe the Monkey Temple in the plan. We already secured a rickshaw/guide for the trip, it should be fun :)