'Midnight at Midnapur'.
Worswick:
That train journey alone is worth at least one book if not more.How about 'Midnight at Midnapur' for a title?
These people Any and Suzanne are total wankers. They are tourists not travellers...
True but I thought it was nice of Andy to write about it and put it up on the web.I tell you why,it is because a lot of Westerns go to India after seeing some glossy pics of Taj Mahal and fancy travel brochures and the like expecting 'wow what a wonderful place to visit' and take the plunge and once they are there are horrified to see the pollution in big cities,the poverty,the petty bribe-taking bureaucrats,the inconveniences,the crowd etc and think to themselves 'wow what a bloody mistake,we should have gone to Europe'.<VBG>
So it helps if people write about their experiences,both good and bad, and let others know what to expect so that people who are a bit adventurous and open minded can possibly enjoy their trip and others who are used to sheltered and comfortable life in the West and don't want to give it up for anything, may go to Aspen or Europe instead.
It is like the Swedish tennis coach who instructed his players, who were in Calcutta for a Davis Cup match couple of years ago,not to venture out of their 5 star hotel into the streets of Calcutta 'cos he didn't want them to be depressed for the next day's game ,as most of the kids had never been outside of Europe.So the coach certainly had a point and I read about in some news paper couple of years ago.
The best experience I ever had in a train in India was my few trips to Ooty from Cochin.The train from Coimbatore had the engine in the back to climb the scenic hilly regions in the Nilgiris and the smell of eucalyptus trees i thought was divine and temperature was nice and cool and scenery breath taking. |
