Return to India - North to South in 5 days!!

So after 1 month amongst the tranquility of Nepal we headed back across the ramshackle border at Sunauli and on to Gorakphur, which was to be more of a culture shock than when first landing in Mumbai so many weeks back. Having a train the following morning we needed to find refuge for 1 night and the only available option resembled more a truckers "pay by the hour" nesting shack than any sort of hostel/hotel. For 1 night surely we'd survive, which we did, although it didn't get much better as we searched for a respectable eatery we dodged rats the size of cats, cockroaches looking like they had eaten the rats, & waiters looking like cockroaches.....beautiful!!

Needless to say we made it through the night & began the 1st of many epic train rides to take place over the coming month. 23 hours & 850km to Kolkata where we were greeted by the usual barage of questions from the ever curious natives.....these of which we have grown well accustomed to by now. We had heard some mixed reports of the former capital....extreme poverty alongside the usual difficulties associated here. However Martina and I were pleasantly surprised by the friendliness, apparent organisation of roads and obeying to traffic rules, and general ease of the city. And all this taking place amongst the busiest of cities where not an inch of space is wasted or goes unutilised. With a feast of fascinating architecture of British India around the BBD Bagh area and Victoria Memorial, a monument that would rival the Taj Mahal had it been built to celebrate an Indian, and areas reminiscent of "the land that time forgot" in Barbarbazaar & Chinatown, Kolkata has an interesting contrast of struggle & splendour. Chinatowns are hectic & fast paced the world over, however, wandering the markets & chaotic alleys here made us feel like a grain of pliau rice being ferried around by an army of busy ants!! The decision was taken to depart after only 3 days, as after enjoying the city so much we did not wish to risk the possibility of something, or someone, ruining our experience.

On to the train again.....this time a 35 hour.....1600km journey along the East coast to Chennai. How we wondered would time pass without too much boredom??? Another pleasant surprise as the train became immersed with an array of beggars.....some nice, some annoying, some entertaining & others just disturbing. We had Sari clad singing transvestites, blind men playing accordians, men with no legs sweeping & cleaning the carriages, all kinds of diseased (non contagious) & malfunctioned bodies, harmonica players with no arms (maybe this I made up???), fruit sellers, nut sellers, chai sellers, paperboys, plagiarised book sellers, plus the usual amount of train riding nutcases!! The entertainment was all free of charge and kept us sane, if at all possible, until finally we reached our destination.

With just 1 day in Chennai and after longing to feel sand between our toes we headed straight for Marina Beach. How different beachlife is in this crazy country, with women swimming fully clothed in their Saris, hoards of men playing endless games of cricket, young girls perfroming death defying tightrope acts, plus the usual Indian street cuisine. However, with trash sprawled as far as the eye can see it is difficult to understand the lack of respect for such a natural beauty as the beach & ocean are. Throw it in the bins for f$%* sake!!!! The rest of Chennai, or what we saw, is more traditional and a far cry from its larger counterparts and a wander through the market streets gives an enjoyable glimpse of village life within a city.

The last leg of this entry took us to Madurai, once again by train, only 9 hours & in the with the comfort of a reclining chair & A/C.....travelling in style now!!! Madurai is a small town with the focal point being the huge Sri Meenakshi Temple, a Dravidan architectural masterpiece, covering no less than 6 hectares of land. Inside was somewhat like a Disneyesque fair ground, with an array of souvenir shops, fairy lights depicting Gods & elephants happy to take money from the crowds of pilgrims lining up to make offerings.

So much of what we have been used to and alot of new ever surprising events. The first week back in India had been as interesting as ever.