Trains, trains and trains....

It's happened- I'm ill. No vomiting or chronic diarrhea thank the Lord, just a cold, a hideous cough, and generally feeling like AID's. I miss my mum....

If anyone mentions the phrase "man-flu," I'm going to fly back to England and carnally force myself upon you suddenly and painfully, breathing heavily into your stupid face and shouting, "it's only man-rape!"

The most annoying thing actually is a nervous hesitation to break wind, (an affliction I am usually happily free from, albeit with slightly anti-social consequences,) because it's impossible to tell whether what is thus expelled will be gaseous or liquid in form, the latter being a matter of some greater concern in public areas. So far it's been okay, but with a couple of very close, buttock-clenching calls!

Anyway, enough of this puerility. I'd like to properly start this entry with an apology to British Rail. For every time I have ever slurred the efficiency and standards of your services, I unreservedly apologise. You're still greedy, capitalist pigs, but at least with the obscene amount of money you charge us, the service you provide is pretty good.

If you don't believe me try India. Their train system is literally insane. Given that pretty much all I've been doing for the last few days is sitting/ lying/ standing/ suspending myself from the fucking ceiling, on trains trying to get South, I'm going to write about them pretty much exclusively in this entry, like some demented, disillusioned train spotter screaming curses at the departures board in Paddington abd burning his anorak.

Lets start with getting a ticket, as one tends to. Now being English I have a natural sense of how to form an orderly queue, blah blah boring, as the popular cli chez goes.... but it is true. At least in Europe though there is a sense of a "queue" i.e. the essence of order and fairness still underlie all the bad manners and pushing. In India however there is nothing that even resembles a queue at any point. Everyone simply tries to access one tiny window, all at once, from every conceivable angle. Chaos ensues.

It reminds me of when I used to play 2nd row in school, trying to lodge my poor head through an impossibly small gap between two buldging front row posteriors, only to be greeted by a face as welcoming as gang rape staring angrily back at me. Over two weeks in and all remnants of my politeness and reserve are well and truly gone. I now gleefully barge smaller human beings across the room, laughing as I elbow old ladies in the face, in pursuit of the tiny window.

When I get to the window things don't improve much. As well as being jostled and pushed from every direction, putting me on the verge of turning around and twating the nearest face to mine (probably about two inches away,) my Hindi currently extends to saying hello, thank you etc, and none of the ticket staff seem to speak English, which is fair enough, but not even at the tourist ticket office.

In Satna, which is by the way the worst place I have ever had the misfortune to spend two hours in, I resolved to overcome this barrier by writing down the details of my journey in bold capital letters along with the date and time of my proposed arrival and departure. The woman behind the counter still looked at me with utter gormless confusion, as if I had just handed her a picture of spiderman fucking a watermelon. Another epic fail.

The tourist tickets they have on offer are almost always sold out, and the next hundred years are booked solid. You can go on something called a waiting list, though quite how this works escapes me to? Is it in case someone with a ticket dies perhaps? Or they discover more seats on the train hiding somewhere?

(It turns out that Goa is the hardest place in the world to get a ticket for so I'm having an especially bad time at the moment.)

Here's what frustrates me the most though. What makes me want to reach through the tiny little window and rip their gormless little faces off. When they eventually manage to find you a train, rather than just booking it there and then, you have to take a piece of paper, go away, and fill out the appropriate information, despite said information sitting right there on the screen.

They will then type what you write back onto their little 1980's computor, despite having it right there on the frigging screen all but two minute ago? Why must I write down on a piece of paper an exhaustive list of information about the train you just found for me, just so you can put it back onto your computor?

"This is madness!" I cry. "THIS IS INDIA!" the ticket lady roars back and kicks me down into a bottomless chasm of confusion and despair.

Conclusion- pay the extra 50 rupees and use a travel agent- everything's still sold out but at least you avoid all this shit.

So I get on the train, after evicting several people from your seat, which is usually a gracious process, you settle down. After writing this sentence for the first time, I got on a train and found an entire family had occupied my seat, including two sleeping infants, who the adults proceeded to gesture to and make begging gestures towards me. It was obvious that this was a battle I could not win in good conscience, so I wearily climbed onto a free upper bunk and slept there for a few hours. Incidently the babies woke up crying later, as the little bastards tend to, making me wish I'd dropkicked them through the window and taken my seat instead. You live and learn.

Now sleeper class is a bit of a lottery. If your fan works, there are no dodgy smells you're okay. If not, you may sweat to death before you reach your destination, or get very ill, (I'm blaming my current illness on the extremely unpleasant smelling carriage I took to Jalgaun.

The beds are way to short for me, which is a bit of a problem. I sometimes feel like the guy in the Dr Zeus book, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, complaining about his inadequately small bed. (If you don't know what I'm on about, go look it up now, it's a classic.) The problem is exacerbated as since Jonny got his bag stolen from the carriage as he slept, I've been padlocking mine to the bed and spooning it like a cherished lover all night, leaving me with even less space!

Twice now I've been told off for my feet sticking into the carriage as I slumber away. "Oh I'm sorry, I'll just cut my fucking feet off," I sharply told the last guy, very annoyed at being awoken. He didn't understand but I think he got the message and left me alone!

You can always upgrade to AC, but the price hike is astonishing so on my budget I'd rather sweatily grin and bear it. Plus given I'm not an item of fresh fruit or veg I see no reason to travel in a massive fridge on rails. I wore a hoody and was still cold. It's as if freezing to death is somehow a mark of luxury, and I've only done one journey on AC3 (3rd class). I can only imagine AC1 is some kind of winter wonderland, patrons digging their beds out of snow and keeping warm round a fire of burning rupees.

In fact I quite like sleeper. It's generally comfortable, you meet some nice people, no one bats and eyelid if you smoke out of the doors, and the whole thing can be quite fun with a good group. Unfortunately the last 24 hours have been on my own, but bearable nonetheless. There was a shocking amount of space in second class, and some spectacular scenery. India is left green and lush after the monsoon, add to that the hillsides, endless rural villages, and jungle like stretches of trees across the horizon, and it all makes for a beautiful ride. I ended up being glad I couldn't get a night train!

The key to a successful trainride though is above all else- valium. Oh yes, that stalwart friend of depressed hollywood types is freely and cheaply available from virtually every chemist here. You walk about on a cloud, sleep amazingly well, wake up feeling lovely- the whole thing is just great. I may feign depression back in England just to get my hands on some. Sulk morbidly through meals, start bulk buying paracetamol, leave nooses hanging around the house, that kind of thing.

I don't know what was in that cookie I bought in Khajuraho (though I have a pretty good idea!) but that knocked my socks off as well. It was like the train grew wings and flew to Goa. I love this place. I loved everything on that train ride!

Indian families, trains provide a kind of microcosmic showcase for what I have found to be the most endearing part of Indian culture.

So I've skipped Mumbai, having had enough of cities. I need a beach! The Aussies are meeting me down here in Arambol from Mumbai, where apparently they were scouted for a Bollywood movie! Missed a trick there I reckon. Still this might be the greatest place I've ever been, so I can hardly complain. Seriously- I may never leave. More on that in the next entry. I fear that being here may have a seriously detrimental effect on this blog.

I'll leave you with something that made me laugh. One of my faverite things about carrying my notebook around is finding the stuff I can't remember writing the next day. In the murky depths of my illness on the train, with Valium, dodgy cough medicine and what was almost certainly opium flowing through my veins, I had scrawled across one page in barely ladgable writing "Mum I love you, but I'd sell you for a hot shower right now."

I'm about to go gambling with some Israili's btw. I had to include that! Gambling with Israilis. Next week I will be sunbathing with Eskimo's and visiting a abstenant ashram with the Aussie boys.