Train pain

Hey!!!
Ok..so before we had to fly from Kovalam to Delhi which lover is writing about we had a train ride to Kovalam from Alleppey.

After our backwater overnight boat ride {remember that we did not have a good nights sleep on that boat..practically no sleep..} we went back to our guesthouse that we had stayed at while in Alleppey to hang out for a couple of hours, and drink some coffee and read before having to go to the Train station for a not so long trip {only 3 hours, which is tolerable for me} to Kovalam.

Its always in our best interest to get to the train station around 45 mins before the ride, so that we can settle ourselves and find out what car we will be getting on, so that we can aline ourselves on the correct spot on the tracks and be ready to jump on as quickly as possible. The trains only stop at the station for a couple of minutes, so there is no time to spare, especially when carrying the world on our backs!!!

We took our Kovalam rickshaw friend {its hard to get a good guy, or even anyone you can communicate with at all} to the station and went to find out our car. Of course we find out that our train is running late...2 1/2 hours late. This is bad news for us. We then had to wait at the station, try and not over heat, and get stared at for the next 2 1/2 hours, all the while being exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before. This was also no good because we had scheduled the train so that we would arrive in Kovalam in time for dinner. This plan was now foiled, and the only food shop at the train station had nothing but nasty grease ball, sat out in the heat all day samosas, which I would have nothing to do with, and some crappy puff ball snack thing. Gross. So not only were we too tired, but now we would also have to be hungry, and hot. This is all a bad recipe for me!!!

I tried to make the best of it, and just sat down and pulled out my book to relax. There is no relaxing for a pale traveler in a public place though, especially a transit station. The stares are bad enough, but its when the beggars come that there is no reprieve.

There are many beggars in this country. It is filled with people asking, demanding, and believing that you must give them money. This is tough. Many of these people are born into castes that doom them to be beggars for their whole lives. They never even try and earn their own keep. These are the worst and the ones to avoid. Then there are the elderly, and that is just too much. To see frail old ladies that look like thay are about to crumble into dust is hard to swallow. The ones that deserve the help the most are the mangled and disabled people, which India has no help for. The whole situation is heart breaking, annoying, and difficult for anyone who has a conscience.

At the train station the kind of beggar you get is the caste beggars. The moms carrying a baby on her hip, while she shoves her other 5 year old towards you to pick and grab at you unrelentlessly, and stare at you with dark charcoal eyes that wont let up, all the while repeating some droned mantra in Hindi over and over and over that is to the likes of give me backshish {money} backshish backshish... , no matter how many times you so no, or look in another direction. These are the worst. They are dirty because they never decided to make a change. They are incessant in there tapping, touching, pulling of your clothes..until literally I feel as if I want to scream, and push them away. On top of that, the money would not help them anyways, it would most likely go to the man who sends them out like a pimp to beg and get money to feed his bad habits. Meanwhile, all the Indians, who are not being harassed, just stare at me as if to see what I am going to do, will I give in, or will I be a cold hearted traveler. Its horrible, and unsettling.

So, as we waited, melty in the heat and being harassed by these train urchins my mood went from bad to worse. Have I mentioned how much I despise the trains and everything that goes along with it??!?!?!?!

Finally the train arrived, and we shuffled to our seats. At this point you all must know I was at my wits end, once again!! How many times will I be tested on this trip??!! We had side seats which was nice, but just wait!!! The guys sitting in the next bunk seemed nice enough, until, one of them decided to clip his toenails, and let the clippings fly wherever. Literally there were pieces of some guys ratty toenails flicking into the aisle!! This was too much for me. How disgusting are theses people??!?! Why would anyone do that?!?!?!?! Jonathan tried to act like it was no big deal to keep me calm, but later off the train confessed he thought it was wretched as well.

Well..another horrific ride down..stay tuned for more!!!!
xoxoxo
Alicia Claire