From space, the 100 kilometre road from Orchhra where our train is parked, to Gwalia would look like any respectable highway. Four lanes of bitumen and a well-tended median strip down the middle. Now we’re not talking about the drivers here – they are a constant all over the country. We are talking about the actual road. It seems to me that to make a bitumen road, you put down the base, put the hot bitumen on the base then roll it flat and smooth. This has been achieved successfully all over the world. Except here. This feels like driving on a cobbled road in a vehicle with concrete suspension, except the cobbles haven’t flattened and smoothed with age. They are bricks that were liberally and randomly strewn around last week with edges exposed. Passenger joints have been loosened to the extent that limbs litter the buses aisle. It’s taken about an hour to write this paragraph – line up the “t”, hit the “h”. And vehicles are charged a toll to use this road. Maybe it’s to raise money to put that top layer of bitumen down.
There’s a very impressive palace in Orchhra that was built by Shah Jahan’s (of Taj Mahal fame) father. He built it especially to welcome one of his regal mates in the area. It took 22 years to build. That’s a long time to wait to go and see a friend for a barbecue and a beer.
In #5 of this series I mentioned that to get a decent night’s sleep on this train, I’d have to drink more. This was proven without a shadow of doubt on our last night on the train. One of the great aspects of travelling with groups of people is that occasionally you meet up with kindred spirits and a great time is had by all. So it has been on this trip. The four of us gave it a nudge last night and I slept like a baby. I woke up a bit fuzzy about four minutes before the alarm was due to go off (don’t you hate that) but it was a night where rattling wheels, swaying carriages and piercing horns were shoved firmly into the background. It was also a night when we were all gifted Indian garb – saris for the women and long collarless shirt type things for the men. There was an expectation that we would all dance, Indian style. The women did but in keeping with the ancient adage that men over 40 should never dance, we didn’t.
And that’s pretty much that for the Indian leg of this expedition, unless I think of something else. Sri Lanka will begin just as soon as I see something that you need to know about.