George “drew the short straw” on this occasion and spent the night with his knees under his chin, clad in his nylon anorak, shivering by a broken window. In the morning a flood of new passengers battled their way onto the train and George found himself sharing his bunk with two greasy wretches, a faulty cassette player, a comely Indian girl and a rabbit in a box!
I kept out of the way, relatively unnoticed on the top shelf with the baggage where I dozed and read Gorky Park in relative comfort as mad scenarios played out beneath my eyrie. The day ticked slowly away with long delays at stations and a few flowerpots of tea. We tried some now sweets, crunchy things with a pear drop flavour, and supplemented out usual banana diet.
For safety on the move we stuck to tea (you have to boil the water to make it), banana’s (naturally hermetically sealed), monkey nuts and hard-boiled eggs.
At last, 1.5 hours late, we pulled into Varanasi at 15:00 hrs. Varanasi, also known as Benares, Banaras, or Kashi, is a city on the banks of the river Ganges in Uttar Pradesh, India, 320 kilometres south-east of the state capital, Lucknow, and 121 kilometres east of Allahabad. A major religious hub in India, it is the holiest of the seven sacred cities in Hinduism and Jainism and played an important role in the development of Buddhism and Ravidassia. Varanasi lies along National Highway 2 and is served by Varanasi Junction railway station and Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport.
A short walk away was the Tourist Bungalow where for ten Indian Rupees we installed ourselves in the dormitory. A European trio that had followed us from the station opted for a room when they saw the grubby state of the mattresses in the dormitory. We were made of sterner stuff and were becoming acclimatised to the low standards of cleanliness, so after locking our bags in a cupboard with a flimsy shackle that only gave the illusion of security, we hit the restaurant.
Here we went through the usual routine of misunderstood orders, long waits and gormlessness on the part of the service staff. Still it all kills time. We ate a hearty meal of glorified rice with tea and the nastiest ersatz Coca Cola copy yet, called “Fresh Up”. A soapy English couple are arguing about the service charge on their bill, claiming that they had had no “service” while the staff counter with the tale of a mandatory Government tax.
Out into the night we went, and into a book stall. A soapy European negotiated with a trishaw rogue to take her to “a good restaurant”. “You can’t walk at night here”, she explained to her male companion with finality. We browsed amongst the myriad winged insects and decided they were too expensive for us (the books!) but the stall owner was also interested in buying.
We took a short walk around the block looking at shoulder bags to replace George’s daysack and I sold my remaining English coins to a seedy looking rascal with a cheap radio. We got our unwanted books, handed in our washing and returned to the bookstall where we carried out a good-natured exchange.
We got shot of “Kim” (Kim is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling), “The World According to Garp” and the heavy tome “Lord of the Rings”, and came away with the latest Lonely Planet Nepal Guide and the excellent “Battle Cry” by Leon Uris (Originally published in 1953, Leon Uris's Battle Cry is the raw and exciting story of men at war from a legendary American author, the story of enlisted men - U.S. Marines - at the beginning of World War II. They are a rough-and-ready tangle of guys from America's cities and farms and reservations. Led by a tough veteran sergeant, these soldiers’ band together to emerge as part of one of the most elite fighting forces in the world. With staggering realism and detail, we follow them into intense battles - Guadalcanal and Tarawa - and through exceptional moments of camaraderie and bravery. Battle Cry does not extol the glories of war, but proves itself to be one of the greatest war stories of all time).
In the Chinese restaurant outside the Tourist Bungalow we supped coffee and learned from the “Times of India” newspaper that more than 800 people had been killed in an earthquake in Erzurum in Eastern Turkey where we had stayed on 9th October this year. The 1983 Erzurum earthquake occurred in north-eastern Turkey on 30 October 1983 at 07:12 local time (04:12 UTC). It had a moment magnitude of 6.6 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe).
Back in the dormitory we are besieged by flying bugs of all descriptions and it sounds like a war is raging outside. The building rocks to the sound of ridiculously loud and dangerous fireworks. I endeavoured to have a good shower under a hip level cold tap, something that I am getting used to now as there seems to be no hot water in this neck of the woods.
Despite loud bangs, Tannoy* announcements and alien green things landing on us we eventually fell asleep.
*Tannoy Ltd. is a British manufacturer of loudspeakers and public-address systems. The company was founded by Guy Fountain in London, England as Tulsemere Manufacturing Company in 1926 and moved to Coatbridge, Scotland in the 1970s.
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