I woke early as I needed to go across
the water to find a way to Goa and back before checkout at midday,
as I did not know if I would be spending another night in fort
Cochin. I wondered down to the jetty and got a ferry to the mainland
and once there walked to the train station. Only when I arrived at
the station did I discover that Kochi has two stations and I was at
the wrong one, this meant getting the train was all but out of the
equation. This being the case I set off to find the bus stand, on the
way I ran afoul of a bog cum building site and arrived into the bus
station clad in mud drawing some strange looks. I didn’t have much
luck at the bus station either as there was not a single bus that
went to Goa, instead I booked a bus to go half way to a city called
Mangalore where I would hopefully find a way to Goa. When that was
done I made my way back across the water to check out and get some
food. On the way I bumped into the rickshaw driver who had helped me
out the night before and he offered to take me around the sights
around fort Cochin in return for going to some galleries where he got
commission, this struck me as a winning scenario. So we set out after
I checked out and over the course of the day I saw various; spice
markets, temples, palaces, churches and synagogues not to mention a
fair few galleries. When I had seen most of the sites my guide
dropped me back where I had been staying and from there I went to the
sea front for couple of hours to check out the fish market and relax
before heading to get the bus. Being off season the fish market was a
shadow of what I could be however there was still a lot on offer from
gigantic prawn/lobsters to catfish and a lot in-between that I
wouldn’t know the names of. I got some popcorn and watched some
street performers for a bit and sat in an internet café until the
time came to once more head across the water in order to get my bus.
The bus I was to get was not what I
had expected, it certainly wasn’t built for comfort and it was
obvious from the get go it was not a direct express route, the next
12 hours were bound to be interesting. It seemed I had drawn the
short straw with the seats as the pair I was designated too were not
reclined and had less leg room than the rest of the bus due to being
crammed in behind a door. The bus was crammed to capacity when we
eventually set off for Mangalore, as the bus had no windows it was at
least comfortably cool if it wasn’t comfortable. I spent most of
the journey staring out of the window. After a couple of hours there
was a long stop due to an issue with the bus, then the journey
continued. After a few more hours, around midnight, I started to get
drowsy however whenever I nodded off I would accidentally head-but
this poor old lady next to me so after the second time, where I
nearly knocked her out, I decided I had to stay awake. The rest of
the journey was a blur of opening and closing windows depending on
the weather and attempting without success to sleep in various
possessions.
The hours dragged on but we eventually
pulled into Mangalore just after dawn, I was sorely tempted to kiss
the ground after I bundled off the bus thought better of it after
seeing the state of the ground. Fed up of buses I decided if I was
getting to Goa it was going to be by train so I sought out a taxi
driver and headed over to the central train station. Once I got there
I had to wait for the booking office to open so I got some breakfast
at the station while I waited. When the office opened I enquired into
the situation of the trains, they were still pretty fully booked but
eventually I managed to book a train to Goa that would depart that
afternoon from a train station on the other side of Mangalore. I
promptly got a rickshaw there as I was not up to doing much that day
and settled in there to wait. I managed to find a plug so I spent the
hours watching TV. The train arrived and I sought out my birth and
assumed my usual ritual of locking up my bag and getting set up to
read the hours away. Due to the hour of my train I would be arriving
into Madgaon at around eleven o’Clock in the evening which I was
not looking forward to. When I eventually got to Goa I found that I
was still a fair way off from the area I was to rendezvous with Naomi
Jade and Kerry so I enquired into how I might get there. The people
occupying the enquiry office were of no help, all I got was a few
Indian head shakes and confused looks. The taxi office wanted and arm
and a leg to get there and I was told there was nowhere cheap to stay
near by. So by this point I had decided there was no option but to
sleep on the station floor along with the other hundred or so people
doing the same. By this point I was so sleep deprived it was as
easily said as done....
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