Saturday, 6 Jan 2007: Rail-fanning in Kollam, Kerala January 12, 2007
Posted by Arun Rajagopal in India, Indian Railways, Travel.add a comment
Went around Kollam, running errands, finishing up with last minute shopping. In the afternoon, raced the 6323 Trivandrum – Howrah Express from the railway gate / level cross at SN College, Kollam to the over bridge at Chinnakada, Kollam. Almost crashed into a bus. We won!!! Did my last rail-fanning in this trip… went to the passenger bridge at Kollam Junction Railway Station and snapped up the 6323 Trivandrum – Howrah Express, the 6345 Lokmanya Tilak – Trivandrum Nethravathi Express, a metre gauge train bound to Tenkasi and the Nagercoil – Kottyam Passenger. Decided to celebrate the last night in Kerala with a movie. Enjoyed watching the Malayalam flick ‘ Classmates’ for the second time in Dhanya. Got back to packing. My flight back to Muscat was from Trivandrum at 7am. Had to catch a train from Kollam to Trivandrum in the wee hours of tomorrow morning.
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Sunday, 7 Jan 2007: Back to Muscat January 12, 2007
Posted by Arun Rajagopal in India, Indian Railways, Travel.add a comment
Didn’t sleep the previous night. Ran to the station with bag, baggage and dhols, only to find that the train was running 30 minutes late. Finally, the 6128 Guruvayur – Chennai Egmore Koodal Express made a grand entry. I and my friend Subash who was going to drop me got into a Chair Car. Koodal Express is a train that gets crowded because people make themselves really comfortable by stretching out and sleeping on chairs meant to seat three or more people. You can witness scenes such as one’s feet going into the mouth of another (no not another fetish). And somehow passengers, people getting down at Nagercoil mostly, are too polite to wake up others for a seat. That train is a sleeping beauty, where people are sleeping on chairs, on the floor, in doorways, on luggage racks and even under chairs. I dozed off as I was too tired, till a fellow passenger who was feeling that the night was too dull turned on his transistor radio to kick up some action. We soon got to Trivandrum Central, and I didn’t even want to take a second glance at the train, fearing I would lose my interest to return. We took an auto rickshaw to Trivandrum Airport. Discovered that it must be the among the few airports on Earth without an ATM. If you need to find one, you need to walk out of the international terminal and get to the domestic airport. Keep some cash with you (not to dole out to smarties without flight tickets!!!) but for essentials. The airport security won’t let you leave the airport once you enter, but then as I always learnt on this trip a smile can move more than mountains. Checked in, had to pay excess baggage for books, sweets, et al… loved the sunrise as I was boarding the aircraft. The sun was a bright brilliant red cusp… reminding me that the end of every journey always leads to the beginning of the next.
To view more snaps from Kerala, click on http://new.photos.yahoo.com/schmoozeby/
Type ‘Kerala’ in the ‘search tags’ field in the top right corner and click ‘Go’.
Arun Rajagopal 