Monday 12^th November

This weekend we certainly did sail2xs.  It was improbably beautiful, glorious weather – sunny, warm, brilliant blue sky. 

On Friday night we left in a bit of a squall and anchored, shivering slightly, in Mary-Anne Bay, not far from South Arm.  Pete cooked us a delicious meal of curried scallops with mashed potato, just the perfect meal to fill up our tummies before snoozyland beckoned.

The next morning we went down the coast and sailed right into the bay at Port Arthur.  This was absolutely stunning, breathtaking, in fact. 

A long time ago – it was, in fact, 1988 – I had a distant Dutch cousin to stay for the week between Christmas and New Year.  Janneke was a solemn woman, in her mid-thirties, who worked for the Christian Peace Movement in Amsterdam.  I have no idea what she made of our rowdy, cheery family.  It was a chaotic and cheerful time in Tasmania, with the Tall Ships in the harbour and everyone out and about along the waterfront.  We did our best to make Janneke feel welcome, and to give her a good time… Not so sure what she made of the Doug Anthony All-stars at a concert in the Salamanca courtyard on New Years Eve, or of the accompanying comedian who was absolutely hilarious but EXTREMELY rude… I hope her English wasn’t quite good enough to get much comprehension…

I took her up Mt Wellington, up the Shot Tower, down the Huon etc etc.  She looked at everything with a rather jaundiced eye and said, “Tasmania is pretty, I suppose, but it is not really spectaculaar.  Right!  I’ll show her spectaculaar!!!  So off we went to the Tasman Peninsula.  She stopped saying Tasmania was ‘pretty’ after that… We went swimming at Eaglehawk Neck and she looked at it all with deep suspicion.  “What is wrong with this beach???”  When I said nothing was wrong; it was a perfectly lovely beach thank you very much, she said, “But where are the people???”

I spent a bit of time this weekend thinking of Janneke.  I have no idea what became of her.  She didn’t keep in touch, and she certainly didn’t return to the Antipodes… Does she ever think of this wild and beautiful part of the world, with its empty sweeping beaches and fabulous, forbidding coastline?

India #15

We loved our train trips.  We covered huge numbers of miles, not sure how many hours, lost count… Maybe 48 hours?  Maybe 3,500 miles?  All of it cost us $50 each, for the whole amount of travel.  So cheap, and so wonderful.  We read up a bit about Indian Railways and found that it employs 1.6 million people and is the biggest employer in the whole world!  There is a vast network of trains going hither and yon, very efficiently.  Our preferred way was to go SC2 non AC.  This meant Sleeperclass, non-airconditioned.  The bunks were 3 deep, so it was more crowded, but it was so much nicer having the windows open and fresh air, and a proper view of the world.  We had one quite long stint on SC2 AC, which we didn’t enjoy nearly as much.  For a start, air-conditioned nearly always means COLD.  Also, people were not nearly as friendly as in the lower-class non-aircon carriages….

Our first few trips were very pleasant and restful.  We had several seats each, and could stretch out under the windows to doze and watch India roll by.  The second half of our train travel was much more cramped.  Every seat was taken, and many of the bunks had two or even three people curled up on them.  All sleeping like angels.  Men, women, old people, babies, toddlers, all peaceful and uncomplaining.  The only person whingeing away (quietly I hope…) was me…  I did love sleepers, loved being able to get horizontal, but I never could sleep properly because Princess Marguerite found the bunks too hard.  TOO HARD!!!  My back was just agony.  So I would lie on my back, then on my side, then on my tummy, then I would get up and plod up and down the carriages, trying not to bump into protruding limbs.  I did buy two pillows, a big one and a small one, and they did make a bit of difference.  But not much, I’m afraid.  Yes I would do it again, I loved the trains, but I think I would have to take an inflatable mattress with me next time…

So much to see out the windows…. Sometimes we would pass other trains, vast long things.  Some of them were laden with trucks.  Each truck would have a driver sleeping at the wheel, or smoking, or, more often, five or six drivers jammed into the truck cabin playing cards, or balancing on the bonnet.  Other trains would have a hundred or so red and blue tractors on them. 

And inside the carriages it was all go too.  Chai wallahs would be up and down every ten minutes or so, calling out CHAI CHAI.  The answer to this, from me was NO THANK YOU.  I really didn’t like chai at all; boiled sweet milky spicy tea, carried to and fro over many hours in a big billycan.  Oh no…But I could see that it really was very delicious, refreshing, and very cheap, and the chai wallahs were lovely boys, some of them full of chat and cheek.  They also sold coffee, proudly advertised as Nesscoffee.  This too was all boiled milk and sugar with a few spoons of Nescafe, and not for me at all.  I LONGED for hot boiled water and a teabag…

Then there would be food wallahs, selling all manner of things – samosas, thalis (little dishes of this and that on a tray with a bit of rice and a roti or two), sandwiches, all very cheap, and some of it very nice indeed.  It was also possible to buy food on the railway stations.  The trains usually stopped for ten minutes or so, and we got some really lovely things to eat – freshly made “omelette sandwiches”, which were actually omelettes wrapped around a bit of white bread.  This might not sound all that yummy but I can assure you it was extremely nice.  And bananas, small greenish ones, which wouldn’t last more than a day if you bought a supply, but which were just right for a nourishing little snack.