A/C or non A/C? That is the question!

Whether ‘tis nobler in the human mind to suffer the drips and itches of outrageous sweating, or to take arms against outrageous prices . . . or simply to sit in the air-conditioned carriage in the anticipation that lackadaisical ticket inspectors will not struggle through the crowds to check the tickets on a train that has come down through the night, and now has only the short 1-hour journey from Varkala to Trivandrum remaining.

I paid my bill at Asinmomo, and said goodbye to the rippling surf and golden sand. The rickshaw drivers know that they can charge what they like for tourists, and I coughed up my £2, instead of the going rate for locals – 80p, for something over 3 miles to the railway station. I bought a ticket and settled on a concrete bench on the platform to wait for the express train for Trivandrum. 

I tried to ascertain where the “2^nd Class Sitting” carriages were, but when the train pulled in – and my back-pack weighed heavy on my shoulders, I just climbed in. . . with the honourable intention of walking through from the A/C (air-conditioned) 2-tier sleeper coach. But the sleeper coach was almost empty, and the temptation was just too great, so I dumped my pack and relaxed in the comfort of cool, calm and quiet.

The train trundled on. I was excited about this part of my trip. I would have 4 hours in Trivandrum, and wanted to sort out a reservation for the forthcoming, penultimate leg of my trip in January. After a lengthy queue in the station yard after arrival, I purchase a fixed price rickshaw voucher, which ensured that I would pay a fair price for my journey to find the travel agent who had issued my bus ticket to Trichy. As I had suspected, it turned out to be a 1-man office in a back street, but at least it was the rickshaw driver who had to drag up and down the street to find the place, while I sat in relative comfort.

It was a wise move, which enabled me to discover that the bus would not leave from the Central Bus Station, as I had been told, but would depart from somewhere in the commercial area. Worth learning! I sorted out my ticket and reservation from Madurai back towards Mattindia on January 17^th, and then the young man sent me off in another rickshaw for lunch in a different part of town. He assured me there were lots of good and inexpensive restaurants in that area, and wrote the location in Malayalam for the driver.

Lunch was excellent: a classic “thali” in a family vegetarian restaurant. Clean, tasty and comfortable, but too dark and bustling to sit and enjoy my Kindle book, so I then set off to find the office from which the bus would leave. The rickshaw dropped me in a street of travel agents, and after asking around, I managed to find the one belonging to the actual bus operator. It was a one-man office with a perfunctory but adequate sitting area for customers. I settled down and chatted to the travel clerk. “So when will the bus for Trichy arrive here,” I asked, “Oh no,” she smiled, “the bus does not leave from here, and it is not a direct service. You will need to change onto the Trichy bus after two hours. Don’t worry; the driver will look after you. The bus leaves from the College of Music, and it will be there around four o'clock.”

An hour or so later you would have found me sitting on the concrete surround of a political monument on a traffic island in front of the College of Music, totally engrossed in my book. Had I not glanced behind me, at around ten past four, I might never have seen the gleaming air-conditioned sleeper bus that would be my next mode of transport. I clambered aboard, to the amazing sight of rows of seats and tiers of bunks, and a dozen or so hot and lively young men, chatting and joking.

2-tier bunks on one side and
seats with bunks above on the other

They might have been a sports team, and they looked as if they’d not had time to shower when they hurried to catch the bus. I was soon to regret the sealed environment of the air-conditioned vehicle, as the system sucked in the aroma of jock-strap changing room, and recycled and chilled the air before pumping it back into the body of the bus. No – it wasn’t rank and totally offensive; it just lingered, tainted, and added an unwelcome fragrance to the atmosphere.

One way and another, this part of the journey was not pleasant. Those first two hours of the route are on minor roads, and the bus bumped and jolted along, allowing me to re-taste each of the seven little ramekins of different vegetable curries that had been served with rice on my thali. I was not sad to say goodbye to the luxury bus and glad that my non-A/C connection would let me open a window and catch the smells of spices and cooking and the perfumes of the dressmakers’ shops and beauty salons, as I journeyed on through towns and villages all decked out with thousands of Christmas fairy lights and giant, star-shaped paper lamps and lanterns.

And so I dozed as the bus glided on smooth highways, off into the night. We were scheduled to arrive in Trichy at midnight. The courier promised to wake me when we arrived and assured me they would drop me at a suitable stop for my hotel. I absorbed the atmosphere (in every sense) of each town and village we drove through.

I should by now know better than to make finite plans in India. It was 2.45 when the bus hit the outskirts of Trichy and the courier bundled me into a rickshaw. You can imagine the insecurity of being driven around deserted suburbs of a strange town at three in the morning, wondering if you will ever see anything resembling a fairly modern hotel, or wondering whether you are being taken down a side-street to be beaten up and robbed. I never understood why the bus dropped me where it did, since the website had assured me the hotel was virtually adjacent to the bus station, but eventually, and much to my relief, the rickshaw driver swung into a fairly impressive forecourt. I had decided that if I was to arrive in the night, I had better find the sort of place that will have a 24-hour desk for late arrivals. I staggered into the lobby with its inevitable row of half a dozen moquette sofas and a night manager fast asleep and not wanting to wake up.

The price was wrong, and the manager knew nothing about the hotel’s email exchange with me, but never mind! The room was clean enough, and I was very soon dead to the world, and only a taxi ride from the monastery-ashram of the Holy Trinity.