Farewell India
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2006
1
18
Trip End
Mar 28, 2006
Varkala, India
Sunday, March 26, 2006
I decided to travel in 2nd class down here because it was only 64 rps - under a pound to travel 5 hours! And what a different world it is to 1st class A/C! The carriages were packed and the seats the wooden slatted kind. Managed to find a seat amongst the rubbish and a belching old woman! Got myself settled in but the rest of the carriage occupants didn't stop staring at the foreign girl and her enormous rucksack eating weird food!
Mobile phones have taken India by storm and my train journey was subjected to listening to phones going off every five minutes. They are relatively cheap and so nearly everyone, including fishermen apparently, has one. I think it is also abit of a status symbol and so they like to show off they have one. As a result they are forever fiddling with them, going through all the ring tones, letting them ring and ring before answering them or making calls and shouting down the phone! I guess it was like that in England too.
You'll all be pleased to know (especially my cricket-following friends and family) that after spending 3 months in a cricket-loving nation, i am now vaguely interested in the sport! Do i hear gasps of shock?! It's very hard to get away from it. On every available outdoor space you'll see the entire neighborhood's population of boys playing cricket. Quite often several games at once. Even at Trivandrum airport, where there are no shops and no cafes there is a state of the art flat screen TV showing the latest cricket match! England's victory made front page news - much to the despair of every Indian i mentioned it to!
This will be my last email from India. I am quite sad to be leaving and would like to come back and see the North. It has been an amazing experience and one i would recommend to everyone who hasn't been to India before. I am going to miss the friendliness of the people, Masala chai, the noise and chaoticness, Hindu music everywhere, the children and their curiosty in foreigners, being asked 'You are coming from Madam?'and 'Your good name?' every five minutes, the Southern Indian head wobble that can mean yes, no, maybe, the heat, the dust....The list goes on! Having said that I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE EVERYONE AGAIN! I have missed everyone loads. I am also looking forward to having hot water and a bath, cold milk in tea, English food, and not having to use bottled water to clean my teeth!
I've got Monday night in Trivandrum and have to be at the airport at 2.30am - not a nice time. Oh well, there will be cricket to watch!
SEE YOU VERY SOON. XXXXXXX
