Bihar Travelogue (Chennai-Ranchi-Chatra)

Abi had gone on a trip to Bihar (& Jharkhand) in Apr 2005 - after we graduated from B-school and before he started work. Through my next few posts, I will share his experience as he traveled to his homeland. I prefer writing in first person, but this trip and its memories are not really mine.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a hot, lazy summer day in Chennai. I sat on the couch and looked up at the rotating ceiling fan and its complete inability to alleviate the heat of the day. I continued to look at the fan in disgust (inertia had taken its toll) and actually felt like it was slowing down because I could count the blades of the fan. Suddenly the TV went off and then I realized there was a power cut. While cursing the heat and incompetence of the electricity board, I remembered my village in Bihar. It gets really hot during summers with temperatures reaching 45 degrees and our house in the village doesn’t have electricity because no one really stays there. It had been long since I visited my village. Before long, I had made up my mind to visit my village in Bihar. I shared my brilliant idea with my parents and sister. While they were happy, they were also quite concerned about the heat and my safety while traveling alone. But my excitement soon won them over.

I began planning my trip. The first thing to do was decide on which places to visit. Most certainly on the list were maternal & paternal villages and Varanasi (since it is a holy city and I had never been there before). This is what the final plan looked like.

Travel Dates: 20 Apr – 3 May 05

Travel route & mode of transport
Chennai - Ranchi (Train)
Ranchi – Chatra (Bus)
Chatra – Tatra (Paternal village) (Trekker)
Tatra – Chatra (Trekker)
Chatra – Gaya (Bus)
Gaya – Patna (Train)
Patna – Hajipur (Shared Auto)
Hajipur – Ekma (Train)
Ekma – Sitalpur (Maternal village) (Cycle)
Sitalpur – Ekma (Cycle)
Ekma – Varanasi (Train)
Varanasi – Mugalsarai (auto)
Mugalsarai – Patna (Train)
Patna – Chennai (Train)

It is a little difficult to show this long route on a map, but you can use this interactive map to find the places.
http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/india/india-political-map.htm

Chennai – Ranchi
My first destination was Ranchi. I took the Bokaro-Alleppey Express from Chennai on 20th April. My parents and sister had come to see me off. I had been advised not to stand out from the crowd to avoid getting robbed. So I dressed down in my oldest clothes, carried a nondescript bag and left my camera at home. My mom fussed over me for a while in an attempt to convince herself that I would come back ok from the trip. Soon the train sounded its bewitching whistle to suggest that it was ready to start its 38-hour journey to Ranchi. There was a sudden activity with family & friends (who had come to see off others like me) leaving the train in a rush. I enthusiastically waved good-bye and felt a sudden thrill. It was a trip to my village after a long time (the last time I went was 7 yrs ago) and it was a long train-journey. I love train journeys because it offers splendid views of the countryside, an opportunity to meet interesting people, an excuse to get down at stations to binge on food, time to introspect and above all a train is large and comfortable unlike other modes of transport.

After my initial excitement had subsided, I looked around to identify the seasoned travelers on this route from rookies like me. There is a lot to be gained by befriending the regulars on trains. They know the train and journey like they would know their family members – good places to eat, where to buy water from, which are the stations the train halts for longer, when will the next station be arriving, is the train expected to be late and so on. An old man with thinning hair and paan stains on his teeth was looking at me curiously. In the true spirit of a train journey we started talking immediately. Like a proud parent, he said, “this train is never late”. I discovered he was going upto Ranchi as well. I asked him about Chatra. He didn’t know the place but asked others around. Soon I was sharing my travel plans with about 10-12 people who seemed sufficiently impressed at my plans and offered various pieces of useful advice – Loo chal rahi hai so its very hot, smell an onion if the heat makes you feel faint, avoid opening your wallet in front of others etc.

Soon people dozed off to sleep and the train got silent and dark. I realized the train was following the same route as Chennai-Calcutta and stared out at the familiar landscape as the train rocked me to sleep. Woke up to a rainy day next morning. This region is green (more so in the rain) and hilly with lots of tunnels in the Orissa-Jharkhand border. The train entered the Chota Nagpur plateau and I realized Ranchi was close now. After another comfortable night in the train, I reached Ranchi at 10am on 22nd morning.

Ranchi - Chatra
Ranchi station is just like any other big junction – noisy, crowded, busy. I have been to Ranchi a few times as a kid and I remember it being beautiful. I didn’t have time to stop this time since I had to reach Chatra before dark because there were no streetlights along this 150km route and it was unsafe after dark. Hence there were no buses from Ranchi to Chatra after evening. I got an auto from Ranchi station to the big busstand in Ranchi. For lunch, I ate the best Puri Bhaji at a restaurant near the bus stop. The heat was unbelievable now. During the month of May, intense hot winds called Loo sweep across northern plains of India creating a heat wave and temperatures consistently soar over 40 degrees. I covered my head with a towel since I hadn’t got a cap. I checked to make sure I was carrying onions since I hold advice given by fellow travelers in high esteem.

Finally, it was time for my bus to leave. I handed my suitcase to the conductor who loaded it on top of the bus. I looked up to see if it was securely tied and saw that other than pieces of luggage, the bus also carried vegetables and a goat, which grazed on these vegetables. The conductor assured me that since its safe even for a goat to travel on top so my suitcase was most certainly safe. During the conversation, I also learnt from him that goat was being carried to Chatra to be sacrificed. This apparently is a weekly affair with goat(s) being sacrificed every Tuesday. He didn’t seem to know the reason for the sacrifice and benefits expected from it. I wonder if anyone did. I got into the bus and heard the pathetic bleating of a few more goats. Were they all in line to be sacrificed also?

I settled myself in a window seat. A boy, probably in his late teens, sat next to me. In a few minutes, I heard thud-thud noises like rocks being dropped on top of the bus and thought robbers were attacking us. The local boy sitting next to me informed that since this is the last bus for the day, people who couldn’t get tickets were settling themselves on top of the bus between the vegetables, goat and all. The bus began to move when a man with a dog entered. Huge chaos in the bus. Someone said “kutta katega” and few others screamed. The man and his dog were fairly oblivious to these protests and the dog was seated by a window since it had a valid ticket.

Finally everyone – tribals, students, a newly wed couple, man with dog and I – settled down and the bus made its way towards Chatra. I was tired but the heat made it impossible to sleep. We were crossing a railway line when suddenly the bus stopped in the middle of the railway crossing. Some people looked at each other knowingly, said “puncture” and got down to push the bus towards a mechanic’s shop near the railway line. While waiting for the tyre to be replaced, I spoke to a few locals. The bus was now near Lohar Dagga, which is a coal mining area. Relevant piece of trivia – Jharkhand has the 3rd highest coal reserves in the country. A couple of people in a cycle spotted our bus and made their way towards the bus. With amazing efficiency, they threw the cycle on top of the bus and got onto it as well. Almost immediately, one of them wanted to know why the bus wasn’t moving. Probably he felt that the bus had been waiting for him!

We traveled for another hour before a 2nd tyre burst. This time it was fixed faster. Probably because it was getting dark and we needed to get to Chatra before sundown. People around me didn’t seem perturbed by the punctures or the stop in journey. I assumed it is quite normal for these incidents to happen. We finally reached Chatra at 6pm and the bus emptied at record speed – man, woman, child, dog, goats and vegetables included.

Book Review - IOU (Noreena Hertz)

“IOU – The debt threat and why we must defuse it” by Noreena Hertz is about the Third world debt crisis – why it began, how it has evolved, what is the threat, how do we manage this threat. She does a great job of making a complex subject extremely simple and understandable.

After the first few chapters, I felt so enlightened that I began to question whether it was at all a complex subject. Quick googling confirmed that none of the articles or discussions on this topic come even remotely close to being as logical, understandable and comprehensive as this book.

The writer proves that the cause of high third world debt is a series of geopolitically motivated, commercially motivated or plain bad decisions. The consequences of these decisions have been terrible for the developing nations. She highlights that some of the poorer countries are so indebted that they pay more on debt servicing than on health care and education. With examples and reasoning, she argues that there is a high threat that some of these countries might default on payment and the impact will be felt across the world and not just within developing countries. Finally, she proposes a solution to get third world debt to manageable levels. All of this in a simple, understandable way.

At some points, I got the feeling that she was trying to hard to get the point across with some examples being used and re-used in multiple chapters in the book. Also, the solution she proposes is academically sound but unlikely to be executed in reality. But these are minor issues in a brilliant book.

Highly recommended read for anyone remotely interested in global issues or economics! Anyone interested can borrow the book from me. For others, I can send a one-page summary. That's how much I liked the book !

Rating - * * * * *

Book Review - Come Away with Me (Edited by Sarah Macdonald)

'Come Away with me' is supposedly a collection of short stories describing travels of Australian travel writers. Countries covered include Russia, Portugal, France, England Japan, US, Vietnam, China and Sri Lanka. While some stories qualify as travel writing the others are just rantings of writers who could have been in anywhere while they wrote their piece of nonsense. Here is a ranking of the stories in order of (my) liking.

1. A battle with English Equipment – It’s a description of the author’s travel to England for a book launch. It isn’t travel writing in the strictest sense. But I found the self-deprecating humor and casual writing style brilliant. I am sure I’ll love the other books written by Nick Earls
2. From Russia with Love, Sweat & steam – The writer describes 3 key experiences while she stayed in Russia (1) Public baths in Russia where she is beaten with birch twigs, smeared with coffee and honey all in the spirit of a good exfoliating bath (2) A high-end gym which is frequented by socialites and mafia men (3) Her introduction to Russian Deep tissue massage where she befriends the masseuse.
3. Sri Lanka – An informative piece on the writer’s experience when he came to Sri Lanka to interview the leader of Tamil tigers.
4. Same Same but different – An engaging story of the writer’s bike trip to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam
5. Be it ever so humble – An Australian of Chinese origin decides to make a trip to discover the China that she knows about about through her father’s stories. She finds herself to be an outsider and the real China to be vastly different from what she expected. Informative.

The remaining 5 stories are extremely boring and hence tiring to read. These 2 easily qualify as the worst.

1. Nikki Gammell’s self-indulgent tale of visiting Disneyland Paris with her children and how they behaved themselves in this fairy-tale location. I don’t think Disneyland or angelic children qualify as France!
2. Sarah Macdonald’s Australian story of birth of her child. Childbirths happen anywhere & everywhere. Just because the writer happened to be in Australia during the time does not make it an Australian travel piece.

In the end, I just wish it could have been a compilation of fewer, quality stories instead of challenging the reader to separate the good ones from the rest.

Rating - * * *

Day 7 of 'A week in Cambodia'

We had a list of temples to see today. Honestly, all temples were now beginning to look alike. However, since Suporn seemed genuinely excited by going to the temples again, we decided to humour him. We went through the motions of admiring the temple architecture, understanding the history and commending the king who built these temples. Then we moved on the the next temple and did the same again. I remember only one incident during the morning. For the rest, my mind is a blur.

We were in a temple – it could have been Preah Khan just as easily as it could have been some other temple. I had pulled a hamstring the previous day during my climb at Angkor Wat. So I was finding it difficult to scale the steep stairs. Each step was almost a foot in height ! I somehow managed to reach the top without incident. I had difficult in getting down though. I held on to the handrails with both my hands, lowered one leg and then slowly the other. This meant I was doing a speed of 1 step in 5 mins. Sometime during my descent, Abi raced down the stairs and looked up to me (literally!) from the bottom of the stairs. His expression was a look of triumph (at having reached down in record speed) and disguist(at my inability to do the same). I also became aware of a man with a huge backpack standing next to me. My pain was unbearable to him and he offered to help me get down. I had half a mind to accept but I would have felt like a loser if I did. So I didnt. On reaching down, I planned to give Abi grief about not helping me. As soon as I reached level ground I said, “Even a stranger realized I was in huge pain and you didnt bother to help”. Abi ignored me. Not having got the desired response, I continued with this line of conversation for a while. Suddenly Abi turned to me and said “He offered to help you because he is a stranger to your ways. Dont I know what a drama queen you are?” A combination of acute self-realization and extreme anger left me speechless.

By noon we realized that we couldnt possibly eat another random lunch at a shack or look at any more temples. So we requested Suporn to take us back to the city for lunch at FCC. He was deeply hurt that we werent giving Angkor the respect and time it deserved. I was beyond caring now. My mindspace was completely occupied by food. Abi tried to pacify him and said we would return the next day (what a liar!). After an awesome lunch, Suporn decided he would give us a couple of rest hours since he somehow realized he had been through a lot in the past few days. At 4pm, he would come back to take us for a boat ride in the Tonle Sap lake.

We drove through the city for a while and Abi admired the real Cambodia. Gradually, the roads got narrower and the air got smellier. We were reaching the Tonle Sap lake. I obviously expected a relaxing sunset cruise like the one we had in Phnom Penh. I was in for a shock. We were pointed to an unstable looking fishing boat with 2 wooden chairs on it. The smell was positively nauseating now. The water was chocolate brown. A woman was fishing in the lake. Fat chance any fish survived in these hostile conditions and fat chance she would survive after eating fish from this water. We got into the boat and as it started moving, the wooden chairs started sliding backward. I had never felt so scared in my life. As we moved inwards, the water became less brown, the air less smelly and the boat more stable. However, whenever a bigger boat passed us, it did feel like we would topple over. We were taken to a wooden structure in the middle of the lake to see shrimp harvesting. I chose to see the sunset instead. We were completely surrounded by locals each holding a bunch of bananas and offering to sell it to us for a dollar. We (and other tourists) ignored them. Sunset done, we made our way back to Suporn.

At night, we went to watch apsara dance performance – Cambodia’s traditional dance which is strikingly similar to its Thai counterpart. We reached the venue to find that all guests were extremely formally attired. We looked and felt shabby in teams and t-shirts. Even the staff there looked down upon us. We are not easily embarrased at these minor issues and made our way to our seats. I was conscious of atleast hundred pairs of eyes looking at us in disgust. An Old English couple seated next to us tried to get their seats changed but it was a full house. Too bad for them. I liked the dances and the food was passable. Abi looked irritated at having to spend his time and money sitting with pretentious people to watch something he didnt understand. I ignored him, because this is his standard reaction to performing arts.

While this is the end of Day 7, we spent an additional day in Siem Reap just lounging in Blue Pumpkin and reading our books. A well-deserved break after a hectic vacation.

Day 6 (contd) of 'A Week in Cambodia'

Energized after lunch (actually not really), we went to Bantay Kdei which was a Buddhist monastery in the 12th century. We sat under a shady tree and dozed off for a while. Woke up sleepily when I felt something against my leg. I was shocked out of my wits when I realized it was a dog. I tried to run, but twisted my ankle and fell. All this was too much for the dog to take. So it quietly retreated. I looked around victoriously only to find a couple of kids laughing their guts out. One of them had the nerve to actually approach me and try to sell a guide book. I said childishly "you laughed at me, so I wont buy your book". I dont know if he understood what I said. I hope not !

Disillusioned by this place, we went to Sra Srang which is a pool nearby. There were a few stalls en route to the pool. I realized the number of stalls outside a tourist spot is an indication of how popular it is. For the rest of the trip, I used this as a measure to determine how much time to spend at a place. Anyway, as we were walking towards the pool, a young girl approached me. With a sweet smile she asked, "Missy where are you from?". I usually dont bother replying to these people, but I said India. She quickly replied that New Delhi is the capital of India. I saw new found respect in Abi's eyes. He said something about education helping the poor people in Cambodia. This conversation was getting too tedious for me. I decided to go back to my default state of ignoring her. Then she asked me the following questions - (a) married? (she checked my hand for a ring and then gave me a bangle) (b) Husband? (she looked at Abi for a while who asked her if she went to school) (c) Hot day no? (d) Cold drink for hot day? She seemed quite keen to follow us around, so in an attempt to get rid of her I said we would buy it later. I had this exact same conversation with 3 others.

We had a nice, relaxing time by the pool and were totally not prepared for the drama that happened on our way out. The first girl I had spoken to came running towards us to say that we should buy a drink from her stall. Since it was an extra-ordinarily hot day, we didnt mind. But then the others appeared as well and they kept saying "If you dont buy from me, I will cry". We randomly chose one stall and the others aactually bawled like someone had died. I was pretty upset and wanted to leave immediately. Abi said, "you cant allow them to emotionally blackmail you like this". So I sat surrounded by crying girls while he finished his drink. Interestingly, they stopped crying when I wasnt looking in their direction and would start crying if I seemed remotely interested in them. After what seemed like eternity, we were finally on our way out.

We visited a few other smaller temples during the afternoon and finally were on our way to the Angkor Wat. We saw a lake on the way and Suporn informed us that it was Angkor Wat's moat. I felt that the temple must be quite something if its moat was so huge. Angkor Wat is the largest and most breathtaking structure in Angkor. It is believed to be the largest religious structure in the world. I was in awe of the fact that such a huge & intricately carved structure was built so many centuries ago. The central temple has 3 storeys. We easily climbed up the first and second. They were not really high and the stairs were in good condition. The 3rd storey is significantly higher than the first 2 and has 4 sets of steep stairs (one on each major direction). The width of each step is about half the length of a human foot and the stairs were at almost a 90 degree incline. My hypothesis is that Khmer people in the 12th century had really small feet to be able to climb up on those stairs. I shared this with Abi and he was thrilled that finally I was beginning to observe these things and make my own hypothesis.

I was scared to climb up, but also felt ridiculous to have come to Angkor Wat and not go up to the top. So I mustered enough courage to climb up slowly. I felt pretty brave going up because lots of people had actually given up. I reached the top and only then realized how much more scared I should have been during the climb. Getting down was worse. But I had a choice of staying up on the top storey of the temple forever or coming down with the others. So I chose the latter.

From Angkor Wat, we went to Phnom Bakheng to watch the sunset. It was a hill that I climbed with great difficulty (this was before I started yoga practice!) only to reach the top and find a cloud cover blocking the sunset. It was a tame end to a brilliant day at Angkor.

(I have been asked by more than a few people on whether I will ever move on from writing about this one trip. I will, there is only one more day to write now!)