1 Strike, 3 States, 2 Worlds

I had a bonefide train reservation for one of India's reputedly most scenic routes which leaves Jagdalpur (in Chattissgarh) for Vishakapatnam on the east coast of Andra Pradesh everyday at 9.50am.  Not only did I have a ticket but the only ticket I could buy was in first class (again), so anticipating luxury I had charged my ipod and was looking forward to kicking back with a few bhajis and the odd chai whilst I wound my way down from the plateaus amongst the peaks of the Western Ghats. 

The state of Chattissgarh had other ideas though.  Jagdalpur train station was seriously decked out for a political rally, it had bunting strung between its palm trees, plastic chairs all over its platforms and ...for one day only the state railways were on strike!  I have no idea if these occurances were connected but with my future chances of making train reservations in mind I thanked my lucky stars that Chattissgarh only has two lines neither of which I would be needing to book again too soon.

If I was gutted not to be able to enjoy my luxury train ride, Frank from Belgium was relieved about the strike.  Frank didn't have a reservation and may well have had to face the full 9 hours  in unreserved second class ...stood up or if lucky he'd have perched on a wooden bench bwith umpteen fellow passengers.  To be clear, last time I travelled in unreserved 2nd class, a pretty young Indian lady who was incredulous at my presence the presumptively enquired "excuse me madam but why are you travelling in this compartment when money is not an issue for you?".  Cheap it is, and fun for a while too ...but not for 9 hours.  Regardless, we took our mixed emotions down to the bus stand and sought provisions for the apparently "only 5 hour", "300km" public bus trip over the mountains.

In developing countries (and Turkey), when a bus loads up with passengers at the bus stand, one must never assume that the bus is therefore full.  For some unfathomable reason, about 50 metres outside the bus stand/station/stop, there will be at least one additional passenger waiting on the road, I can only assume that it might save a penny or two on the ticket.  Another anomally is the fact that passengers here think that getting onto the bus is the be-all-and-end-all.  It has not hit them that allowing other passengers off the bus first will be far easier and will stop their children being maimed in the crush.

Fortunately for humankind there are scheduled stops during these epic passenger swapping journeys on which the westerners and the driver/conductor team seem to be the only fools to take the entire trip.  These stops are fine for men but do require a "sod it if I don't just wee here I will explode" attitude from the ladies but that aside they always have chai, snack and meal options.  At Jaypore, just below the peaks, we stopped just outside the bus stand where a couple of friendly lads mixed the nicest mixed fruit lassi (yoghurt, ice and fresh fruit) I have ever had.

Between the stops, our bus driver heaved the super-wide bus through some wonderfully decorated homes and villages.  The tribal villages of Chattisgarh gave way to the tribal and non-tribal villages of Orissa.  On both sides of the  state border the stunning tribal villages seemed to have selected their location based upon the most beautiful, wide and shady tree, however there was a sizemic shift in the non-tribal architecture as we crossed into Orissa state.  This shift was from non-descript concrete homes to indivisual, intricate, psychadelically painted narrow houses with external spiral staircases.  As the bus churned through the main roads, either side of me tiny streets burrowed deep into the towns flickering with low turquoise mud huts and skinny rainbow homes, dotted with luminous ladies doing the whole lot of stuff that women do everywhere.  I will most definately make a purposeful trip back to Orissa!

Somewhere in Orissa we left the 750m plateau for dust and ascended some serious hairpins in our very wide bus, the width of which, by this point had become a point of fascination ...it was laid out as a two seats, an aisle and then three seats all which were full size rather than being tiny little indian-sized-seats, but the roads were still one single track of 2m wide tarmac with rubbly edges for use when something else needed  to share the tarmac and we didn't fit them at all.  I digress, so we climbed and then, once we were as high as we were going we rumbled through some blown out hilltops into a range of forested mountain peaks.  It was stunning, beautifully  terraced paddy fields undulated in and out of the folds of the peaks for at least an hour before we began the heady descent passing wrecked trucks whose drivers must have run out of amphetamine and finally given in to the sleep they were so deprived of.  We clung tentatively to the edge of the mountain range as we dropped right down to sea level so the views over the cheshire-flat plains were outstanding.  Thankfully it did not get dark until we were safely down in Andra Pradesh and the road to Vishakapatnam was flat and even, in fact having meditated for a while I opened my eyes and we were on a dual carriageway!!  I had been so remote for so long that when we reached Vishakapatnam's bustling city centre my eyes were on stalks, there were giant lit billboards (like you see in Bangkok) traffic lights and big glass-fronted shops with sale-banners, advertised discounts,  AC and mood lighting, to be honest I didn't even see this stuff in Delhi and I barely make a UK city centre so I was genuinely wide eyed and giggly about the new world that I had arrived in!

NB

I don't bother trying to capture views out of windows, it never works so I apologise for all this writing and not a lot of anything else, but I had to do something to sit purposefully in this gorgeous restaurant all night on my own!

Am I a moron given how much of Asia I have travelled in during my lifetime for not realising that "paddy" meant "rice" before now? My grandad wil be turning in his grave if they're online up there yet!