The train....Sunday

OK I wasn’t relishing the idea of a 6 hour train ride from Delhi to Dehradun , and especially the wakeup call at 5am.
Last night I passed out rather than slept and woke surprisingly rested, the room was lovely and cool due to the aircon.
Carried out normal ablutions and packed ready for my lift at 5:45. What I didn’t expect was the heat at 5am, it’s a little cooler than the mid day sun but at 5am still a shock.
I still can’t get used to being called sir by everyone and not being allowed to carry my own bags…. The ride to the station was short and the AC in the car worked well.
Approaching the rail station was an experience, people laid out on the floor sleeping in blankets and then my worst fears came to life, a train pulled up with no glass in the windows just bars, it was absolutely packed, it looked like a prison car.

This train was long, I mean long, it was over a minute before it stopped passing us and I recon was about halfway along the run of carriages.

I then noticed glass windows in some carriages but these were also rammed but not quite as bad as the “prison train”. Then at the top of the train were the lovely words “executive car” it was next to the “Pantry car” quite quintessential English I thought.

Left side of the platform.

Right side of the platform.. prettly big huh?

Huge seats, laptop power points and soft Indian traditional music. It felt like it had a little aircon but also had turbine fans above the seats (these things are speedy and work well).

My driver insisted again on carrying my bags and seemed a little hurt when I offered to help. He showed me to my seat, loaded the baggage above me and gave me a bottle of water; he wished me well and headed off. The carriage had a trickle of people all very well dresses and looked to be the elite of India.
Allocated seating is important and is strictly adhered to. Despite the empty seats a well dressed gentleman sat next to me (after asking if it was ok for him to do so). He was very polite and we sat and waited for the train to depart. After the train had departed the aircon kicked in and I had to turn my turbine fan off as it was too cold.

The turbine fans....

A member of staff with a tray of picked, de-thorned and individually wraped roses appeared. He offered me a rose before anyone else, I thought this might be a pub weekend “rose for the mrs mate” scam and had I accepted he would be holding out a hand out for money. I declined the rose, he then gave them away to every passenger of the carriage for no cost, I thought this was a nice gesture. 15 mins after the train had left the station a member of staff bought round a catering trolley. I was in a carriage surrounded by locals but I was again served first, this did make me feel slightly uncomfortable and I was expecting disapproving looks from the locals, but they were all genuinely friendly. Morning tea consisted of a “tea kit” in a paper envelope, powdered milk and some biscuits. So far so good. The gentleman next to me in very good English asked where I was from, I explained and we soon started to chat, it turns out he was a senior military government official on his way to some highbrow UN and India meeting. He was very well educated in politics and Indian and Anglo-Indian culture, we spent hours chatting about the multi-tiered economic and cultural difficulties that face India and I began to get a real understanding about this county. India still has a very obvious tie to its heritage of British occupation, there are 20+ dialects in India and the one language that joins them all is English. Next came the newspapers, one was in Hindi and 4 were in English, I chose the daily mail (Indian paper in English) and the Hindustani times (Indian broad sheet newspaper in English) it struck me that India still has the legacy of the broad sheet times where we now have a comic book Times. The papers were in perfect of not a little Victorian English.
My co-traveler explained cultural legacies that still remain from the days of occupation and along the way showed me English built buildings and structures still in place. Now some history; interesting, but might be boring if you came here for a quick read.

How India was taken over by the British for 1 pound.

In the 1500s India had become rich by the sales of spices and herbs to Europe, then in 1592 India decided to put the price up of its spices by 1 pound a pound. This back in the day represented an enormous hike in costs for the English spice fans. So the monarchy of the day decided to send someone over and see if we could transport our own spices to England . Hence the east India trading company came into existence. Meerton is the centre of the produce rich areas of India and became the first British occupation are. To safe guard the valuable spices, cotton and monies involved in trading we sent over troops. Soon we sent more to different camp areas, then soon we recruited from the local Indian population then the occupation was in full swing. Well in a nut shell that’s the conquest discussed. My other interesting face was previously referred to in an earlier post, Gin & Tonic the national drink of England… English troops in India were required to take one quinine tablet a day to help combat malaria sometimes they forgot, so the mess came up with an ingenious solution. When the soldiers were getting there one shot of gin a day they would often take it with water. The mess started serving water with the malaria tablet already added. So the solider if he had forgotten that day to take his malaria tablet could do so at the mess. As the water with the malaria tablet was seen as a medicine it was referred to as tonic so he was offered Gin and water or Gin and Tonic… Today tonic water still contains quinine to aid flavor but in very little quantities to be of medical effect, interesting eh?
Next came breakfast, which not surprisingly was corn flakes, served dry with a sachet of sugar and a cup. Milk was soon followed but was served piping hot. After that more tea followed…and you thought the English drank a lot of tea.
An hour later and more tea, another hour and fresh fruit, an hour later and freshly squeezed juice. I can’t believe how well looked after you are on the “executive car”. I chatted with my co-traveler further about India and politics etc… I found this fascinating and makes me want to re-visit India and spend some more time seeing this remarkable county. Not one to normally be interested in politics but India has to cater for people who live in shacks and make less than a dollar a day to millionaires that drive the poor streets in spanking new mercs.. It’s a very fine balance between tolerance and “controlled chaos”, any European government could just not deal with the diversity that is India. This diversity is what makes it such an interesting country. I am especially interested in the cultural legacies that the British occupation has left and in reading my Hindustani Times it makes me feel a little warm inside.
It’s now 10:30am and just another 2 hours of the journey left, I have definitely noticed the countryside getting greener and the sheer number of mango plantations.
I’ve not started my IT course yet but feel I have had a real eye opener to this very misunderstood country; I feel that this is no longer a classroom 15 hours away from home. I’d definitely like to share this experience with my girlfriend Lou x Everyone has been very polite and welcoming, on one hand it’s like a museum and a step back to the good old days of Blighty and occupation but on another it’s a developing country that struggles with its extremes, culturally and economically, but ha great support from its loyal people. India is a very determined country with pride and a forward thinking tolerant government.

With the train ride over and a short drive in the car they sent for me I was taken to the "County house" this was going to be my accomodation for a month. The bedroom was large and very clean and tidy, the bathroom was again large and clean and tidy, there was and airconditioning unit and a celing fan... result!

Bedroom.

Bathroom.

The room had a balcony outside and gave antastic views of the foothills of the Himalayas.

View to the left of the balcony.

View from the centre of the balcony.

View to the right of the balcony.

I also saw my first wild monkey but when i went to get the camera the critter disapeared..
I was going to walk up the road to investigate with a co-student friend of mine, we had both just arrived so decided to freshen up first..... After 30 minutes the heavens opened and rain came down like ive not seen before. I think its was a good idea to put off the walk ;-) Instead we got the center manager to call pizza hut and get them to deliver (what a descovery) pizza hut in India is a little different, as you might expect. They have a massive offering of vegaetable pizzas and a few chicken pizzas, but wait they also had pepperoni.. well that was a must!! we ordered 2 large pizzas 2 portions of garlic bread one with chillies, olives and curry flavour, 2 600ml pepsi and 2 7up. The cost of this was about £8 so not a bad meal for 2 and lunch the next day!

After the Pizza I decided to chill out a bit and see if I could get any sleep back.... I spoke briefly to my lovely girlfriend who I miss loads at home and then went to bed, ready for my first day at the training centre......

PS. I know im like a day behind but time flies here......