The guy in the photo above is my personal hero.
When I arrived in Nashik, yesterday feeling fragile after a sweaty six hour bus ride clenching my buttocks, he rolled up in his motorbike taxi, and took me to a cheap, comfortable hotel. Thanks man! You made my day.
Thursday:
I bumped to the ground at Mumbai Airport, filled with expectation, exhilaration and a solid dose of sleeping tablets.
The sleeping tablets were a waste of time. I barely slept at all. The guy in the seat next to me took full advantage of the complimentary drinks and woke me up every half hour to get past me and use the toilets. The expectation and exhilaration didn’t help either.
I rode my scooter out of the airport into a dusty, raucous Mumbai morning.
I went directly to the railway station and bought a first class ticket to Nashik. I knew trying to hitchhike in the seething metropolis of Mumbai was not going to work. I needed to get out of the Capital and into the countryside.
Ticket in hand, I headed for the cafeteria, and tucked into a hearty breakfast. My first Indian food in India. It was cheap and delicious.
I felt pretty pleased with myself. I’d had no sleep, but here I was, booking tickets, ordering food, sailing through the demented traffic on my scooter – I was owning India like a boss.
The first seeds of self doubt rumbled into my belly while I was sitting in the station cafeteria finishing my second cup of coffee and nodding into microsleeps.
The sensation I was experiencing was unmistakable. I’ve never been to India before, but I’ve spent plenty of time in Asia, and I know the warning signs of bowel trouble all too well.
I moved quickly, but only just quickly enough.
I squatted in the humid toilet stall panting and thanking my good fortune to be in the railway station where public amenities are close by.
I’d been lucky, but my confidence was shaken. India had been lulling me into a false sense of security. The game was on.
I’ve been here three days now. Not so long, but it’s been an educational three days. Let me share with you the lessons I’ve learned.
Lesson 1: Food in Mumbai Railway Station is not to be trusted.
Last time I ate railway cafeteria food was in London. It was a stodgy meat pie in Piccadilly Circus. It came wrapped in plastic, was chock full of preservatives and was irradiated in a microwave seconds before I consumed it.
The Indian Railway Cafeteria is closely modelled on the British prototype, but I think it is fair to say that the foodstuffs they are serving are a lot more… organic.
The curry puffs I had for breakfast on Thursday morning tasted delicious, but they clearly contained some bacterial matter that my pampered guts were not equipped to subdue. I’ve been on a diet of dry crackers and fizzy drinks for the last two days and I’m only now starting to feel confident about eating curry again.
Wish me luck.
Lesson 2: the term “first class” is pure hype in India.
After spending half an hour in the railway station toilets I shakily went down to the platform to board the train. I’d splurged the extra five dollars to get a berth in first class. I was looking forward to stretching out on my bunk, drawing the curtains around me and catching up on my sleep during the ten hour ride to Nashik.
I located my carriage and climbed aboard. The train was already packed with passengers. When I found the bunk I thought was mine, it was occupied by three people.
I found a conductor and showed him my ticket.
“First class” he advised me and led me back to the berth I had been at before.
“Are you sure this is my spot?” I asked him naively.
“Yes, yes, first class” he reassured me, wiggling his head sagely.
The three gentlemen already sitting on the bunk smiled cheerfully and made room for me between them.
I pictured myself spending the next ten hours wedged onto the narrow bench, clenching my buttocks and trying not to pass out on the floor from fatigue. It was not an appealing future.
“You’re sure this is me?” I queried lamely one more time. “It says here on the ticket ‘first class sleeper”
“Yes. Very sorry sir” the conductor told me. “First class is very busy today. This is second first class.”
I decided to go to a hotel and travel the following day.
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Lesson 3: in India the word ‘hotel’ can mean many things.
One of the convenient things about India for an English speaking traveller is that there is a lot of signage in English everywhere.
I’d read on Wikitravel that hotels in Mumbai were absurdly expensive. I set about employing my usual strategy for finding cheap accommodation.
The cheapest hotels in most Asian cities are near the railway stations, so I was in the right area. Looking for places online is usually a waste of time because the cheapest, grungy hotels are rarely listed on websites.
My strategy to find cheap accommodation is to cruise the back lanes and side streets around the railway station and just ask for bargain prices.
I was critically tired at this point, but I summoned my strength and set forth.
The area around Mumbai Station is well endowed with seedy laneways, so I felt I was onto a good thing.
In the first block I came across two places with big tatty signboards out front saying ‘Hotel’. Unfortunately neither of them was a hotel.
English is widely used in India, but apparently mostly via Google Translate.
The first ‘hotel’ turned out to be a vegetarian restaurant. The second one was an apartment block.
I was discouraged but resolute. I forged on and after discovering another restaurant and a travel agency, both masquerading as hotels, I finally hit the jackpot.
It wasn’t cheap by Asian standards, but there was a bed and a flushing toilet and I was incapable of walking another step.
I checked in and passed out, cursing Google Translate as I drifted into sleep.
Lesson 4: in India pedestrians rule!
It’s been really cool to discover how courteous Indian drivers are to pedestrians.
Everyone here is leaning on their horn non-stop, but if you step out into the road nobody is going to run you down.
That’s a really good thing because there basically aren’t any footpaths lots of places. Cars, trucks, busses, beggars, motorbikes, kids, dogs – everyone is mixed together on the street in a cacophonous, chaotic melange.
I’ve been riding my push scooter all over the place and nobody is cranky about it. People see me rolling down the street weaving between the pedestrians and taxis, and they wave and hoot and want to take selfies with me.
The streets are so congested and the traffic is so slow moving even if somebody hit a pedestrian with their car they probably wouldn’t get injured. Even on the highways top speed is about 50 kph.
Lesson 5: I will never be short of friends in India.
I’m a pretty introverted guy. I know that sounds like a weird thing to say, seeing as I share my life with the internet every week, but I’m one of those pathetic characters whose blogging compensates for social anxiety.
I’ve never been good at parties. I get nervous meeting new people. I think I experience a pretty high degree of social anxiety.
The most confronting aspect of being in India so far, is that people are looking at me all the time. I’m not just being paranoid. It’s very obvious. Parents lean down and point me out to their kids. People call out at me from passing cars.
Strangers come up to me in the street and say ‘hello’. The conversation usually flounders after that, because ’hello’ is often the only English word they know and I don’t speak Hindi, but – it’s very friendly. Friendly and, for me, unnerving.
I feel like I have just stepped out of a spaceship sometimes. Especially here in Nashik. Mumbai was one thing, but in Nashik walking down the street is quite weird. It feels like every single person is looking at me. I know. I’m paranoid.
I guess I do stick out like a big, pink sore thumb here. I am the only pink person I’ve seen on the street since I left the Airport in Mumbai. No wait. I saw one pink backpacker in the railway station. But that’s it. Just one other pink face in three days. That’s some kind of record.
I’m an oddity in this context. Exotic? Weird looking? Something like that maybe.
It doesn’t help that I tower over everyone by a foot and a half either, I guess. Two feet when I’m riding my scooter and wearing my hiking boots. I’ll get used to it (I hope) but right now I’m a bit self conscious.
Being in the USA and Europe for months has been so comfortably anonymous. I was just another face in the crowd. Now I’m a foreigner again. It’s a weird thing to be.
It takes me a while to enjoy the role of the foreigner sometimes. Especially when I’m tired and adjusting to a new cultural context.
I’m not complaining. Really.
The Indian people I’m meeting on the street are actually super friendly. It’s just been a bit… overwhelming.
When I’m in places where I’m surrounded by other pink people I’m mostly used to being frowned at or ignored. That’s how pink people mostly deal with public interaction. Everyone ignores each other.
To suddenly be in a culture where everyone wants to look at me and say hello is a bit of a shock.
I hope I can get comfortable with the attention. It feels like I could make a million friends here if I can overcome my anxiety.
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