Back on the river at Alahabad
Graptolite's Sailing Log
Martyn Pickup & Heike Richter
Sat 10 Dec 2016 17:33
Flew to Allahabad from Delhi this morning in a little regional Air India
plane. Allahabad is an important location on the Ganges for Hindu's. It is
the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers and a location for one of
the massive Kumbh Mela gatherings every 12 years. The place is described as
the confluence of three rivers but one river is apparently invisible. You
couldn't make this stuff up!
Yesterday, I thought Delhi was a chaotic mess but I've mentally upgraded the
place to 'orderly' now that I can compare it to a provincial city. It's hard
to imagine how people can live for very long in these conditions. Maybe they
don't.
All the senses get a good battering when travelling along these lumpy mean
streets. The air is filled with windblown dust, smoke from cooking fires,
and diesel engine fumes and smells that change rapidly from open sewer to
fragrant spices and back again. Visually, the streets are a riot with bright
colours applied enthusiastically to everything including elephants. The
sound landscape is dominated by the usual horn-honking with an underlying
rumble of revving engines, Indian music and shouting. My hotel room here in
Allahabad has an unfortunately close view of the rail station and
marshalling yards and even the trains are honking constantly. Are they
really signalling that they are about to swerve in front of another train?
I stepped out of my hotel before it got dark to take in some local
atmosphere and to check out the train station. I had to quickly retreat to
get away from the beggars following me around tugging at my clothes, and the
circling swarms of cycle-rickshaw wallahs. It must be a little easier for
travelling Indians who don't have "ask me for money" written on their
foreheads like us Europeans.
Even though I was being hassled, I observed the Unreserved rail ticket
office for a few minutes. It had hundreds of dhoti-clad men there, all
shouting and trying to stick their arms through the ticket booth windows.
I'm giving up my plan to travel on by train and, even though it will put a
hole in my remaining rupees, I'm going to get a car and driver-wallah to
look around Allahabad in the morning and drive on to Varanasi.
M
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