Welcome to the Karvanatti Express. Huge thanks to the lovely Indian lady from First Class who talked to me whilst we waited, and got her son to get my Indian simcard to work. Then after she was settled in her carriage, returned to make sure I had found my seat and didn’t need anything, and finally showered me with kisses and blessings. Nobody has looked at my ticket yet. All throughout the journey IRCTC staff walk up and down the corridors selling hot and cold food, and hot and cold drinks.
‘coffee, chai, chai coffee, chai’
‘soup, soup’
‘byriani, samosa’
‘Bailey water’
‘juice, juice’
I though I was offered an omelet, but I have a byriani. This is the second time today. My breakfast was bread and butter, hard boiled eggs and crisps because I didn’t understand.
Still no one has looked at my ticket yet. You could travel hundreds of miles out of your way if you made a mistake! Having said that, I think this is a wonderful organisation. It is big and complex, with many classes of carriage and a rather convoluted system of booking a ticket, which becomes clear the more you use it. There is air-con in most of the carriages. The poorer Indians still travel in the open door style although I didn't see any on the roof. They carry their luggage wrapped in cloth, huge great bundles tied with string.
I'm so glad I decided to travel by train where possible. Althought I've been asked since
'Karnavati? Why did you choose the Karnavati? It is so slow and boring'.
Well I chose the Karnavati because I was rubbish at booking. Ok? You need to book early, very, very, very early.
25 April 2010
A city of contrasts
I was catching the 13.40 Karnavati Express from Mumbai Central, and was advised to take a taxi at 11.30 because of the traffic. Good advice, I’m glad I took it. Again we went at honking breakneck speed, with me being very touristy and trying to take photos whenever we paused. It wasn’t often enough. I couldn’t get good pictures of the rickety pole scaffolds, tied together with sisal binder twine, and none of the tree boughs which had been built through various walls, rather than cut them off. Nor of all the rubble, or the brick upper stories built on top of the tin roofs. Then again I missed the motorbikes carrying whole families, or a passenger holding a ladder aloft, and the riders carrying a load in one hand - sweving madly but staying on, or the sari-clad ladies sitting side-saddle.
Probably all the Indian cities are like this – I’ll know in five weeks time. There is mayhem on the roads and grinding poverty at the roadside. I never realized what dirt poor really meant. Wherever there’s somewhere to put a tarpaulin or a corrugated sheet, there’s a corrugated sheet and a bit of tarpaulin; and under that lives a family. They line the streets and the railway track, and at every opportunity they sell wares or services to someone else. There are roadside barbers and cobblers, and vendors of fruit and vegetables. They are also selling great bunches of greenery – goodness knows what it is or what it’s for. It is incredible entrepreneurship.
But Mumbai is also one vast building site. There are huge modern skyscrapers and opulent buildings. This place is certainly intending to go somewhere. There doesn't seem to be separate areas for rich and poor though. The painted walls and wrought iron gates behind which live the wealthy, front the rubble-lined streets with their attendant population of destitution.
Probably all the Indian cities are like this – I’ll know in five weeks time. There is mayhem on the roads and grinding poverty at the roadside. I never realized what dirt poor really meant. Wherever there’s somewhere to put a tarpaulin or a corrugated sheet, there’s a corrugated sheet and a bit of tarpaulin; and under that lives a family. They line the streets and the railway track, and at every opportunity they sell wares or services to someone else. There are roadside barbers and cobblers, and vendors of fruit and vegetables. They are also selling great bunches of greenery – goodness knows what it is or what it’s for. It is incredible entrepreneurship.
But Mumbai is also one vast building site. There are huge modern skyscrapers and opulent buildings. This place is certainly intending to go somewhere. There doesn't seem to be separate areas for rich and poor though. The painted walls and wrought iron gates behind which live the wealthy, front the rubble-lined streets with their attendant population of destitution.
First Impressions - 23rd April
Heat. At gone midnight and leaving an air-conditioned cabin it was a shock and everyone remarked on it. ‘Don’t forget’, I said cheerfully, more to convince myself then anything else, ‘we’re standing next to a hot plane’. Some agreed, but the more knowledgeable held their peace. Just ignore me, for I knew nothing. It’s hot.
This place is INSANE. Walking down the corridor from baggage collection (waited almost an hour) it is lined with kiosks offering taxi services, hotels and money changing. Arms beckon from over the glass partition as rivals vie for custom.
The taxi to the hotel at 2am started rather badly. A lad in the hotel livery helped me out with my luggage to where he had left the car, but it had moved on. When he located it a policeman was sitting in the passenger seat haranguing the young driver for waiting in the wrong place. I was ignorant of all this – I didn’t even recognize a police uniform. I sat in the back with my things, the car sat there for a while with exchanges and silences between the two in the front. The young man made a phone call and offered the passenger money, which was refused. I felt distinctly uneasy, unable to grasp a word and feared I had entered an Indian scam about which so much is written in the travel books. Then the passenger got out and crossed the road to strike a reversing vehicle with his stick. The hotel lad explained the problem and it sorted itself out (I have a sneaky suspicion that money did change hands, but out of the view of the tourist)
There then followed the most bizarre drive. At breakneck speed, with the horn blaring constantly at traffic and pedestrians. It is 2.30 in the morning! What are these people doing? We drove over two ‘sleeping policemen’ as though they were lines on the road and on each occasion I left my seat.
By the roadside there were handcarts like the wheeled stretchers of the Great War, with bodies lying on them. Then I saw bodies lying at the side of the road and in the central reservation. Not bodies. People. This was their bed for the night; this is where they lived. Yes of course I knew all this, but it’s very sobering at first hand.
Singh’s hotel is great. There’s a main foyer with an executive side, and a budget side. I’m the budget side. It was clean and tidy, with cheery, helpful staff even at that hour. The room was without livestock, en-suite and air-con, which was loud and gale force 8. A rickety fan revolved above my head, its spindle oscillating through an over-large hole in the ceiling. I turned it to low to reduce the danger of it falling on me in what was left of the night. It took several attempts to balance, coolness, wind speed and noise and I was hopping in and out of bed until it must have been very late.
My mobile – my clock – wasn’t roaming and I had lost all idea of time. I didn’t have a radio and I was missing the World Service.
I awoke to the most enormous racket. I had been aware of the honking for a while but this was chatter. They were the voices of many labourers who gathered outside waiting to be hired. During breakfast I watched their numbers dwindle until it became quiet (ish).
This place is INSANE. Walking down the corridor from baggage collection (waited almost an hour) it is lined with kiosks offering taxi services, hotels and money changing. Arms beckon from over the glass partition as rivals vie for custom.
The taxi to the hotel at 2am started rather badly. A lad in the hotel livery helped me out with my luggage to where he had left the car, but it had moved on. When he located it a policeman was sitting in the passenger seat haranguing the young driver for waiting in the wrong place. I was ignorant of all this – I didn’t even recognize a police uniform. I sat in the back with my things, the car sat there for a while with exchanges and silences between the two in the front. The young man made a phone call and offered the passenger money, which was refused. I felt distinctly uneasy, unable to grasp a word and feared I had entered an Indian scam about which so much is written in the travel books. Then the passenger got out and crossed the road to strike a reversing vehicle with his stick. The hotel lad explained the problem and it sorted itself out (I have a sneaky suspicion that money did change hands, but out of the view of the tourist)
There then followed the most bizarre drive. At breakneck speed, with the horn blaring constantly at traffic and pedestrians. It is 2.30 in the morning! What are these people doing? We drove over two ‘sleeping policemen’ as though they were lines on the road and on each occasion I left my seat.
By the roadside there were handcarts like the wheeled stretchers of the Great War, with bodies lying on them. Then I saw bodies lying at the side of the road and in the central reservation. Not bodies. People. This was their bed for the night; this is where they lived. Yes of course I knew all this, but it’s very sobering at first hand.
Singh’s hotel is great. There’s a main foyer with an executive side, and a budget side. I’m the budget side. It was clean and tidy, with cheery, helpful staff even at that hour. The room was without livestock, en-suite and air-con, which was loud and gale force 8. A rickety fan revolved above my head, its spindle oscillating through an over-large hole in the ceiling. I turned it to low to reduce the danger of it falling on me in what was left of the night. It took several attempts to balance, coolness, wind speed and noise and I was hopping in and out of bed until it must have been very late.
My mobile – my clock – wasn’t roaming and I had lost all idea of time. I didn’t have a radio and I was missing the World Service.
I awoke to the most enormous racket. I had been aware of the honking for a while but this was chatter. They were the voices of many labourers who gathered outside waiting to be hired. During breakfast I watched their numbers dwindle until it became quiet (ish).
First Flight - 22nd April
This is my first flight. Before I left, every experienced flier supplied me with a little nugget of what to expect, and what to do, but all this carefully logged information naturally went up in smoke, or ash, as everybody ‘played it by ear’. But as I said …… jammy, - we’re airborne.
Oddly, it didn’t feel that strange, looking down on the world. London looked amazingly beautiful in the morning sunshine, a fact remarked upon by several seasoned travelers. I think I've spent too much time on Google Earth to find the bird's-eye view that unusual.
So glad I opted for a window seat. Hundreds of miles of barren tracts of land below, as Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan morph into one. Mountains, rocky outcrops and sand form fantastic geographical features, outlining gorges and tributaries - and I wish I knew how they were all formed. I could be looking at the surface of mars, but this is the same planet from where I started and I’m looking down on my global neighbours. They must be down there somewhere, although they leave very few signs. Two straight apparently parallel lines run below; roads going to somewhere, from somewhere, but no sign of habitation or life in general. Then, suddenly, there's a patchwork of green & brown quadrilaterals; for somewhere in this wasteland is water, and this is a farm. These enclaves appear sporadically, and then peter out after less than 300 miles. And the 2 roads weren’t parallel – they met, or maybe we’re flying over infinity now.
It was all going so well, but then airport congestion had us pirouetting 150 miles east of Mumbai, making us an hour late. My first landing was a horrendously bumpy affair which caused the odd scream and a ripple of nervous laughter throughout the plane. Maybe the pilot was as tired as I was.
Oddly, it didn’t feel that strange, looking down on the world. London looked amazingly beautiful in the morning sunshine, a fact remarked upon by several seasoned travelers. I think I've spent too much time on Google Earth to find the bird's-eye view that unusual.
So glad I opted for a window seat. Hundreds of miles of barren tracts of land below, as Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan morph into one. Mountains, rocky outcrops and sand form fantastic geographical features, outlining gorges and tributaries - and I wish I knew how they were all formed. I could be looking at the surface of mars, but this is the same planet from where I started and I’m looking down on my global neighbours. They must be down there somewhere, although they leave very few signs. Two straight apparently parallel lines run below; roads going to somewhere, from somewhere, but no sign of habitation or life in general. Then, suddenly, there's a patchwork of green & brown quadrilaterals; for somewhere in this wasteland is water, and this is a farm. These enclaves appear sporadically, and then peter out after less than 300 miles. And the 2 roads weren’t parallel – they met, or maybe we’re flying over infinity now.
It was all going so well, but then airport congestion had us pirouetting 150 miles east of Mumbai, making us an hour late. My first landing was a horrendously bumpy affair which caused the odd scream and a ripple of nervous laughter throughout the plane. Maybe the pilot was as tired as I was.
Carolyn (1) Volcano (0)
Couldn’t believe it – what jam. Suddenly the planes are allowed to fly, somehow some things caught up with themselves, and flight 9w 0119 left Heathrow with only a 30 minute delay, and I am now flying over the Black Sea with Louis Armstrong on my headphones (dad would have been so proud), having just eaten a fantastic chicken meal. My first curry of many I assume. And incidentally, we’re bang on time.
Can’t thank my children enough for their support, particularly Nikki last night, getting a little lost on the rubbish directions to the hotel. And Mum of course.
It’s hard to realize this is actually happening. I made a tongue in cheek remark to my internet-friend, Manish from Sintex, during one of our numerous email exchanges, that if the big pot of funding available to green schemes like the one I was involved in really wanted to get their money’s worth, they’d pay to have someone do research in India. And how long ago was that? Two years? It never occurred to me it would actually come to pass.
Can’t thank my children enough for their support, particularly Nikki last night, getting a little lost on the rubbish directions to the hotel. And Mum of course.
It’s hard to realize this is actually happening. I made a tongue in cheek remark to my internet-friend, Manish from Sintex, during one of our numerous email exchanges, that if the big pot of funding available to green schemes like the one I was involved in really wanted to get their money’s worth, they’d pay to have someone do research in India. And how long ago was that? Two years? It never occurred to me it would actually come to pass.
18 April 2010
Eyjafjallajoekull
Am I down? You bet. Smugly I missed the snow-bound airports, the BA strike .. but a stupid volcano which has deposited a tiny, tiny amount of grey dust on my van, has closed air travel down in Europe. And my flight goes Thursday morning.
Worse things happen at sea, and I'd rather stay here than fall from the sky due to engine failure, but even so .....
And, it's difficult to curse a volcano which you struggle to spell and can't pronounce.
So I suppose it's fair to say I am a little grumpy at the moment.
Worse things happen at sea, and I'd rather stay here than fall from the sky due to engine failure, but even so .....
And, it's difficult to curse a volcano which you struggle to spell and can't pronounce.
So I suppose it's fair to say I am a little grumpy at the moment.
The biogas dream
It all started years and years ago on a visit to an embryonic C.A.T. in Wales http://www.cat.org.uk/index.tmpl?refer=index&init=1
I met a chap there who said his claim to fame was that he was the first person in the UK to have a shower in water heated by his own waste, and showed us the rear of the latrine block. Buckets of festering goodness knows what was happily making biogas for these guys to use. Once the organic material has been processed by the relevant bacteria, it is compost and can be returned to the land. Fascinating. Well I thought so.
Having lived all my life in the country, and for the last 21 years without mains drainage or mains gas, and as a card carrying environmentalist, the idea of using waste to provide energy has always been always lurking somewhere in the recesses of my mind (sad, yeah I know). I'd already done a fair bit of research on small-scale biogas production in recent years for a work related project, and had come to the conclusion that China or India were the places to go if you really wanted to know anything in detail. I spent a good deal of time exchanging emails with a plastics manufaturing company in India, who make small plastic biogas digesters in varying sizes and types. They could not have been more helpul. If you look here you'll see what I'm on about. http://www.sintex-plastics.com/deenabandu.htm
I met a chap there who said his claim to fame was that he was the first person in the UK to have a shower in water heated by his own waste, and showed us the rear of the latrine block. Buckets of festering goodness knows what was happily making biogas for these guys to use. Once the organic material has been processed by the relevant bacteria, it is compost and can be returned to the land. Fascinating. Well I thought so.
Having lived all my life in the country, and for the last 21 years without mains drainage or mains gas, and as a card carrying environmentalist, the idea of using waste to provide energy has always been always lurking somewhere in the recesses of my mind (sad, yeah I know). I'd already done a fair bit of research on small-scale biogas production in recent years for a work related project, and had come to the conclusion that China or India were the places to go if you really wanted to know anything in detail. I spent a good deal of time exchanging emails with a plastics manufaturing company in India, who make small plastic biogas digesters in varying sizes and types. They could not have been more helpul. If you look here you'll see what I'm on about. http://www.sintex-plastics.com/deenabandu.htm
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