As I stared at the border guard, a tear crept down my cheek...
means that third-class passengers, who are packed in tight, cannot move through to the second- or firstclass compartments.
This was tough. I had a big suitcase, and a heavy backpack. I am quite small and rather old. I learned to write my coach and seat number on a large piece of paper which I could point to when asking for help. Thieving was also a problem, so I padlocked my suitcase under my bunk and slept with my backpack.
The sleeper compartments contained four bunks, each with a brown paper parcel enclosing clean sheets and a pillow case, and a blanket for every person. The other passengers always asked the same questions: ‘Where you from?’ ‘You travel alone?’ and ‘How old are you?’
I met a lady who had just had a heart operation (she showed me her scar to prove it), and a man returning from a visit to Australia to see his son and new grandson. They shared their delicious home-made food with me, but no one really wanted my offerings as I was living on processed cheese and rusks as a precautionary measure to try to limit any ‘Delhi belly’.
One imagines the bunks are sold for the entire night, but you can have good chats with people, fall asleep and wake up to find complete strangers in the bunk a few inches away. This is unnerving the first time it happens.
BHUJ was enchanting and the salt flats stretch to the horizon and the Pakistan border. I walked out on this white desert to see the sunset and was attracted to a group of musicians playing traditional tunes. As I drew nearer, a woman called: ‘ Do you like to dance?’ I do indeed love to dance, so I replied: ‘Yes.’
It was surreal – miles out on the pristine salt flats, lit by pink rays of the setting sun, I was doing Bollywood moves and the Highland fling with a total stranger to claps and cheers from a small gathering of onlookers.
At Varanasi on the Ganges, far to the east in Uttar Pradesh, I arrived at 11pm, six hours late, to find two taxis waiting for me. The drivers were livid and a real row ensued.
I was exhausted, there had been mice and cockroaches on the train, and I just wanted to get to bed. Selecting the nicest car, I climbed in and waited for the argument to finish.
Eventually, I was driven 15 miles to a dark road. This was the one time I was scared. It seemed the driver didn’t know where the hotel was and he rang the night porter to come and find us. Nothing happened.
Finally, we decided to walk along a labyrinth of tiny dark alleyways and eventually arrived at a locked door. To my horror, I could just make out that half the walls were missing. I couldn’t believe this was my hotel. At last, a caretaker opened up. I was past complaining as we passed more walls with huge holes. I just mumbled and moaned until we reached a room. The caretaker said: ‘Madam, all is terrible now. Tomorrow you will awaken and see the sun on the Ganges and all will be well.’
He was right – even though I was seeing the sun and boats on the Ganges through a huge gap in the wall!
After Varanasi, I headed north to Darjeeling in the lower Himalayas in west Bengal, where I twisted my ankle rather badly. I travelled on in a shared Jeep which, apparently, are responsible for some of the worst accidents in India.
Luckily, we had a superb driver who pottered along through teak and fern forests, little hamlets and villages, where the driver delivered and collected large chunks of raw, unwrapped meat, jars of milk and vegetables, while the woman next to me stopped her knitting and leapt in and out to drop off boxes of goods and collect new ones, singing and calling as she went. It was magical.
My destination was Auks Farm, a smallholding run by a brother and sister, surrounded by rolling hills of farmland and forest as far as the eye can see. It is a paradise far from the cities. The next day my suitcase was
lashed to the roof of the Jeep and we set off for Sikkim, a landlocked state in the north-west of the country between China, Nepal and Bhutan. I was the only old person and the only Westerner on board.
At the state border, I realised I had left the visa I needed in my suitcase. It was humiliating – the driver had to unrope it from the roof so that I could rummage through it, surrounded by guards with guns.
Having found it, I limped fiercely off to border control, only to be told I needed the counterfoil, too. I went back to the driver – by now sweating, panting and worried. Having got the counterfoil and limped back, I found the guard checking my long, wrong name in the passport against the short correct one on the visa. I let a tear trickle down my cheek and sniffed in a sad, frightened way. He looked at me… and stamped it.
I rounded off my adventure in Calcutta, back in west Bengal, where there is a statue to Lord William Bentinck, a distant relation of mine. Governor General of India from 1828 for seven years, he is best remembered for trying to abolish suttee, the tradition of widows immolating themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyres.
As for me, I felt fitter than I had for years. I was rather amazed at my resilience, and I had met many new friends. It was tough, never boring and I am so glad I went. It was a lifechanging adventure.