Saturday, November 6, 2010

Common Wealth Games Break: A prelude

So if everyone didn’t already know: Common Wealth Games = equivalent of the Olympics for former and current British colonies/protectorates/what-have-yous. Held in Delhi, India from Oct 2-14.

Endless construction and endless corruption. Basically, the entire time I’ve been here sidewalks, bridges, roads, buildings, city identity have been constructed before my eyes. Bamboo scaffolding (Actually quite quaint, effective and sustainable! Much less garish than the wrought iron “safety” scaffolding found overseas.) adorned the likes of the mighty Red Fort, office buildings, houses, and even the YWCA we stayed in near Connaught Place. Busy roads with no sidewalks! Gaping holes at major shopping centers with no fences blocking pedestrians from the orifices choked with waste and wires. Hardhats?!? You’re funny. Of course there were no hardhats, or at least they were very rare. And blinding metal work in the streets at all hours of the day and night. JUST LIKE FLASHDANCE. Not really but you get my drift.

The construction made life difficult at times. Like when my dear friends Erika and Kate were here around the end of August and it was monsooning ridiculously as we got off the metro at Connaught Place and had to weave our way through seas of mud and tile and electrical wire, stepping on Styrofoam icebergs bobbing in those unknown waters, walking planks of plywood to reach salvation: the covered alcoves of CP. This is off of a major metro stop that handles thousands and thousands of people a day. One might have expected some kind of walkway to be there considering that many thousands more people were expected for the games in a mere month and a half, but I digress. So was the nature of Games preparation: procrastination in all its painful, anxiety-filling, break-neck glory.

Luckily for us, Delhi University (and pretty much every other school in the entire city) cancelled school for fear of the impending clusterfuck impeding student transport to places of learning. (Sidenote: it didn’t actually get that crowded, the games were kind of a fail in terms of attendance, buttttttt we weren’t even here so ha!). And I decided to extend my 2 week break into 3 weeks. Why? WHY NOT?

Itinerary:

Wed. Sept 29: 44 hour train ride to Chennai commences!
Thurs. Sept 30: Train!
Fri. Oct 1: Arrive in Chennai and straight to Ponidcherry (4 hour bus ride)!
Sat. Oct 2: Pondicherry
Sun. Oct 3: Pondicherry→ Trichy (5 hour bus ride) →Thanjavur (1 hour bus ride)
Mon. Oct 4: Thanjavur→ Madurai (4 hour bus ride)→ Kanyakumari (6 hour bus ride?)
Tues. Oct 5: Kanyakumari → Varkala (3.5 hour bus ride + 1 hour autorickshaw ride)
Wed. Oct 6: Varkala
Thurs. Oct 7: Varkala →Aleppy (2 hour train ride)
Fri. Oct 8: Aleppy—24 hour backwaters boat ride!
Sat. Oct 9: Aleppy→Ft. Kochi (I don’t even remember, 3 hour bus ride?)
Sun. Oct 10: Ft. Kochi
Mon. Oct 11: Ft. Kochi → Goa (14ish hour train ride)
Tues. Oct 12- Thurs. Oct 14: Goa
Fri Oct 15: Goa → Bombay (14ish hour train ride)
Sat. Oct 16 - Tues. Oct 19: Bombay
Wed. Oct 20: Arrive in Delhi in PM (after a 20 hour train ride)

Okay so by my rough, forgotten guestimations of time:
44+ 4+5+1+4+6+3.5+1+2+3+14+14+20 = that is something like 121.5 hours just in transit. Which comes out to how I spent about a 5th of my break. Crazy!

The amount of traveling actually wasn’t so bad. I feel like a totally zen traveler now. Throw me on a bus and I will sit patiently. For hours. And hours. Me! Can you imagine? I hardly can.

Anyways, some highlights of my adventures of south India are to follow!

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