chunder down under

Well, finally we caught the train on time. The driver slept in the hotel lobby so there was no danger of him oversleeping. The train to Kalka was quite comfortable, plenty of legroom and reclining seats. It wasn’t the speediest of journeys as there were plenty of stops which allowed vendors to get on and sell chai up and down the aisles. I sat next to a businessman who was reading a paper. He had three daughters and was perusing the “Matrimonials” section of the paper, circling any ads that had “alliances” that might be worthwhile considering. He gave me advice on career options, mainly to abandon IT and go into business. Sensible guy.

The scenery was not particularly impressive; we didn’t pass through any major towns apart from Chandigarh which seemed to be one big military barracks. We disembarked at Kalka as the train to Shimla is a narrower gauge then the rest of the railway.

The “Himalayan Queen” is a toy town train. It’s small and cramped with no luggage storage and it was packed. I bought a meal from one of the food vendors on the platform and ate it on the train. As it began to fill up I had to dispose of the cartons and as there was no waste bin anywhere (or any room on the train) I followed the lead of the other Indians and threw it out the window. This got me disapproving comments from the English couple seated opposite. When I replied that we were in India and that was what people did (plus there were no other options), their reply was “Well, we need to educate them”. Pompous, patronising, imperialistic idiots. To western eyes the seeming disregard of Indians to the environment, and the casual mounds of rubbish that litter the landscape and surround houses may be disgusting, but there are many of our customs that they find equally disgusting so who are we to lecture them? Although the stunning scenery on the route was marred a bit by the crisp packets and coke bottles casually tossed out the windows.


















As we began our ascent through the hills the scenery gradually changed. The cacti and subtropical vegetation of the plains began to give way to more temperate views. Villages were built on the hillside and fields were terraced in thin strips. There are 150 tunnels on this short journey (about 6 hours) into the Himalayan foothills, and winding around the hillsides is not a journey for anyone suffering from vertigo as some of the drops are worrying. This was why I decided to take the train rather than the bus: I didn’t fancy Indian driving around sharp bends with massive drops, especially having been previously involved in a car crash in the hills of Kerala.

There was a tense moment during the journey when another English couple in the carriage reported that a man sitting opposite them had got off the train and left his briefcase behind. In these times it is always suspicious, and it is the kind of area and target that makes it more possible, but after they had called it to the attention of the conductor he assured them that he knew the man and not to worry. Sure enough he had merely got off the carriage to sit with his friends in another one.