Good to back amongst the backpackers and touts. Matheran (Forest at the Top") an enormous, and hard to reach, disappointment. Had thought I'd outwit the travel mags by scooping them on a hill station not far (India not far = 4 hours, 2 trains) from Bombay with a tale of gins beneath banyans and verandas where afternoon bleeds into evening...
TRIP to MATHERAN
Well. Early early departure from the Garden Hotel, Bombay sound asleep at 5:30 - Victoria Terminal not so. The interior could have been any hour at all - the casino world of India train stations, minus oxygen and waitresses. Gambling takes form of figuring out which line will get you the right ticket in time to figure out which track that train leaves from in time to figure out which is then your correct car. Had been (ill) advised to purchase an unreserved ticket and so stood resolutely for 40 minutes to come away with my Rs. 35 (<$1) ticket in hand. Sheepishly followed instruction to sit in the Ladies Car - an Indian nicety indicating just how far the nation's ready to trust its men.
Which began fine, a few ladies and me, but we weren't throng-enough to warrant seclusion on an otherwise bursting train. At the first local station, men descended and we became all-access. Little bothering though, a smidgen of peeping, and the freedom I needed to take lots of photos. From VT it's almost 40 minutes through Bombay's slums and grim cement architecture till you hit something sort of bucolic. Departing impressions of Mumbai - as you trundle through septic backyards - is of folks going about their morning business in a very public sphere (like most of India really). But sullying the palatable domestic scenes of teeth brushing and hair braiding, is the pervasive presence of the squatters. The men and boys of the slums, a smattering of younger girls (not sure where the older ones go), do their morning business on the tracks - butt back, facing front. Since you never catch squatters in action - getting up or scroonching down - I have to imagine they maintain their genial pose of watching the world go by for stretches. Men + morning routines = global phenomenon.
"Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate, mostly, beside the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover."
VS Naipaul, An Area of Darkness
(News of government making toilets top-most priority. Where else, really, to go?)
Pleased to get off at the right station (Neral) and make my way across the tracks to the side platform that would launch our toy train to Matheran. Stepped out with a 1st Class ticket for Rs. 210 (<$5, vs. second class unreserved for Rs. 24) and felt top of the travel world as I settled into the cushioned small compartment, windows both sides. No aisle, or means of passing through. The single gauge tiny train is just a series of bogies (cars) strung together. Ever-India, service is not foiled and narrow runners, with a large step's distance between carriages, runs beside the cars. These footholds are tailor-made for transporting chai walla's and Frooti-walla's bogi to bogi, station to station. Cry of - "chai! coffee! nescafe!" echoes as you pull from the station and, before you can say chai walla he's back at the window. Make a beverage decision whenever! (Excellent description of Bombay's most common wallas with Mario illustrations (dad!))
Our little train waited for 3 big ones before leaving but worth it as we pulled out and started in on the first of our 207 turns up up through the hills. Hills not India's loveliest (stubby, trees blunt, undistinguished not helped by dryness) and greens beside the tracks trash-strewn. But human droppings gave way to cow patties in this new land and there was a non-festering zip to the air.
Two hours upwards - twisting all the way. It was Diwali yesterday, today's New Years, so unwittingly joined a throng of holiday making families en route to (their) weekend of fun.
Failed travel 101 by not booking the Neemrana hotel I'd wanted to stay in and (strike 2) therefore allowed a tout named Imran to pluck me from the alighting throng and lead me down a sewage alley to his family's nicely perched, but nasty, box of an (over priced) hotel. No view - no window to have a view from except in the bathroom with a view of, and hubbub from, hovel yard next door. Hot water 7 and 9am, bucket shower, hybrid squat toilet - raised but with treads where a smooth seat should be(memories of the tracks?), no fan, no give to the bed, and nothing at all to qualify it has a $30 a night hotel, not even breakfast.
Emerged from its dark grimness to take on the town - the "Only pedestrian hill station in Asia." Had a beyond-miserable cheese and chicken sandwich: tendon bits and flab, washed down with a Limca (beer only served in Saloons, dimly lit dens of no ladies). Pestered by two boys from Mumbai, ogled by the family beside me, but a nice view of enormous women sucking down kulfis on a stick and being trotted around in a wheeled stretcher by team of skinny men, also large boys being led by on small horses.
Not a lot else going on in Matheran (amusement rooms of games, famed chikki shops
, bargaining for cane items and, this from a travel site: sign myself up for an (overpriced) tour on horseback of the scenic lookouts, and added the Verandah in the Forest Neemrana hotel to tour.Which was the highlight - lovely, as imagined, and people gently snoozing as happy jazz played. Oh but I was stupid, next time (got a brochure and a full tour).
Back on my "young" horse - explanation why mine the only one to whinnie and get a wild look in his eyes when I mounted - and off to the viewpoints with the rest of the holiday makers. We were all - on horse back - following lemming-like the same tour, of the same viewpoints, of the same scene with different attractions (bowling, balls through holes, weigh yourself, and a telescope man (5 views + explanations, Rs.10) plus usual crap Indian packaged snacks. Alighted at Echo, Lord's, Honeymoon Hill and Lake Charlotte, got hassled by cocky monkeys, then back to the room (butt sore).
Sat out evening's Diwali festivities - firecrackers lit by parentally guided kids, a concert in the main square and families having meals. No niche for a single female traveler in Indian holiday towns. Earlier in the day had been turned away from hotel by a manager who'd alluded darkly to a 1996 incident when a single woman had hosted a "brothel" from her room. Sins of my sisters.
Out of town this morning on the 5:45AM toy train for Neral. Crowded compartment for a Saturday morning after the nation's most major holiday. We were a smelly crew in my second class carriage (no padding) but convivial as we descended back through the mountains in the darkness, with our chai walla making his rounds.
Lovely triumphant return to Bombay - proper breakfast in my (and most foreigner's) favorite Cafe Leopold's, back to the Garden Hotel (now a "friend"), and able to do my city errands practically unmolested.
THE PLAN
Tomorrow early fly to Calcutta (switched a plane ticket if you're itinerary following) then have booked a second class AC berth on the late afternoon Kanchan Kanya. It will drop me early Monday morning in New Jalpaiguri - there just a two hour hop up through the tea terraces to Darjeeling.
THE WRAP
Maybe another report before signing off for today - expect blog fallow tomorrow - then know just the cafe in Darjeeling to pick up the narrative strand...
Thanks to everyone who's reading this, please pass it on.
Cheers from the road,
C
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