Move over, Mojo

Indian Railways GA

Our first Indian train ride is a General class metal bench-seat style carriage for the 50-minute journey to Villupuram Junction, and it costs us just 6 Rupees each – about 15 cents. On the way, we meet a tall, young Indian whose name we can’t quite catch through his thick Tamil accent. He’s traveling all the way up to Ahmedabad in the north-west to compete in the Indian National Athletics Championships in the high jumping event. I try to imagine New Zealand’s national athletes travelling like this, and remind myself for the umpteenth time how good we have it back home.

At Villupuram, we have a four-and-a-half hour wait, and there’s not much to do but read, write and avoid making eye contact with beggars. I take photos of the sun sinking behind pink clouds, and the train tracks disappearing into the horizon both north and south. Pete surveys the rest of the station and finds out which platform our next train departs from. When he returns, he tells me he's just been mobbed. “What do you mean? What kind of mobbing?” I enquire. “General whooping, hurraying and handshaking from a group of boys,” he says. “Some women surrounded me, too, but stood at a distance.” At six-foot-something (and white), he does stand out.

In the first class waiting area, another lovely Tamil man befriends us and helps us with the language barrier when a short-tempered lady checking tickets doesn’t approve of our e-ticket via iPhone. The man asks what Pete does for a living, and then looks at me, asking Pete, “Is madam a lawyer, too?” I smile, bemused. It’s a question I get asked all the time in New Zealand, as well, with 90% of my friends being lawyers. “No, she works in a bank.” Pete replies. Like Geoffrey, the Malaysian friend I made last week, it turns out that this man works in a bank as well. “The main bank in India,” he proudly tells us. I consider one-upping him and saying that my bank creates truly unbeatable shopping experiences for its customers.

The Tamil Nadu contingent of the Peter Barnett Fan Club

As we board, we see the whooping, handshaking boys of about 12 or 13. Safety in numbers, they come over to chat to us again – Pete and I being an attraction as the only European people in sight. “Where are you from?” the ringleader enquires in his best English. “Ahh, New Zealand?” Pete replies, wondering if they’ve heard of it before. Their faces light up. “Cricket! Daniel Vettori!” they cheer. “You are the captain! You are Daniel Vetorri!”

The boys tell Pete they’re a hockey team, also off to the nationals, and then they look at me. “Are you two married?” I tell them we’re not, and shake my head, laughing. They’re confused and wonder why we’re travelling together if we’re not married. “Ahh, soon to be married.” Pete lies. I grin and hide my left hand, which clearly has no engagement ring on it, and make a mental note to purchase a fake diamond.

The train itself is pretty horrendous. We’re in a first class cabin with two Indian men, one of whom starts yelling in Tamil in the dark – possibly on his phone, or possibly in his sleep. The other makes noises of another kind, resulting in one of the worst stenches I’ve been exposed to so far in India – and there have been some pretty ghastly ones. There’s a poster outside the train’s toilet door advertising the Mamallapuram Dance Festival, set to take the area by storm on January 7, 1994. Bugger, we’re just 18 years too late. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the last time these train toilets were cleaned either.

We arrive at 3am to an eerie Villupuram Junction. Waving goodbye to the hockey team, our new biggest fans, we sidestep people sleeping in heaps everywhere we turn. On the platforms, in waiting rooms, outside on the streets. Our driver, Mr Sidiqque of Kodai Cabs is nowhere to be seen. Pete gets on his phone and battles the operator who thinks we want to make a new booking. Autorickshaw drivers corner us, and small men swathed in white cloth, nappy-like pants and with white paint smeared across their foreheads approach us. Thank God I’m not alone. Taxi drivers offer us rides in their Ambassador Classics – they’re everywhere in India, but our trusty Lonely Planet says they’re slow and to steer clear. On second thoughts, slow might not be such a bad thing on these roads.

The car Mr Sidiqque is supposed to be meeting us in is a newer, more reliable Indycar, a bit like a Suzuki Swift. Ahead of us is a three-hour journey by night to the hill station of Kodaikanal, advertised as “the Switzerland of India”, but there's still no sign of Mr Sidiqque. Half an hour later, he answers his phone, apologising profusely. He’d been napping in the car park and didn’t hear our calls. We pile our stuff into his car and before we set off, I ask if there are seatbelts. To my surprise, Mr Sidiqque says there are. He gets out, piles all of our gear out of the boot and fumbles around for the belt clips, eventually feeding them through the back seats.

We set off in the pitch black, through beautiful tree-lined streets, and we pass hives of activity along the way. Countless groups of people in matching costume march along the streets. Some carry big bags on their heads, others carry sparkly shrines on their shoulders. It’s 4.15am – what are they doing chanting and singing at this hour, we ask Mr Sidiqque. “They’re walking 120 kilometre to Palani, the most famous temple in India, miss,” he tells me. “They will walk it 20 days, 15 days.”

Tamil Nadu street coffee - a treat for the tastebuds and eyes

There are throngs of people sitting around drinking chai and standing in the doorways of bakeries and shops. Mr Sidiqque pulls the car over and asks if we’d like tea or coffee. Having not had dinner the night before, we gladly oblige and witness the most incredible coffee-making stunts known to man. I capture it all on film and the Tamil street barista laps up the attention, pouring and mixing the coffee from jug to jug like he’s competing in the 42 Below world champs. One jug above his head, one below his knees, coffee flowing from vessel to vessel. He’s more interested in smiling for my camera than looking at the coffee, yet he doesn’t miss a drop.

Pete and I look at each other, jaws dropping once again. This is much more impressive than the fern or love-heart I get on top of my trim flat whites in Wellington. Move over, Mojo, I think we have a new favourite coffee shop. The coffee is served in tiny paper cups and is sweet and delicious. It provides just the caffeine hit we need for the next stint of the car ride – a climb to the Kodaikanal Hill Station, 2100m above sea level.

As we turn off the busy main road, with its midnight marchers, chai drinkers, and shoppers, I’m amazed at how much activity goes on throughout the night here. If New York is the city that never sleeps, India is certainly the country that doesn’t. And I love it.