I ventured a little farther afield today. I took the train to Vashi (washy). I am finding that traveling even short distances in India to be exhausting. The first challenge is and always will be the constant heat. There is a little joke about the Climate in this part of India. They have three seasons, Summer, Rainy and Not Summer. Not Summer, the season I am experiencing is still in the 30s Celsius (90's F) and though it may cool at night, it does not cool by much, maybe mid 20's so that the next day it all starts up again. The other phenomena that I am tracking is that High Humidity does not bring the expected Rain Showers that I am typically used to, so there is no cooling off period in between heat waves.
Since I am without a car and do not intend to get one. (See post about a typical Indian day on the roads.) I am left with a few options; walking, taxi, autoricksaw or train or some combination thereof. My first trip out on Friday was to simply find the Train Station. Most addresses here are far too complicated to understand even by the locals and maps such as Google map and Mapquest are not accurate enough, oft times misplacing a building (not their fault, if the locals don't know where it is, why should a mapsite). So I use a combination of sites at the same time, Satellite maps from Wikimapia or Google Earth in conjunction with Google Map or Mapquest. I am fine so long as I have a baseline or the building is big enough or described as being beside something I can find. I had an idea of where the train station was and on the map it was very large so it seemed a good start.
Unfortunately, the first step is to cross the highway, there is a light of a sort but it is a six lane road and the light only stops traffic in one direction. Native Indian pedestrians have developed two strategies for crossing roads, either be fleet of foot or be fearless. Since I am not fleet of foot, I have adopted the fearless strategy. I have the slight advantage of being six foot tall and white which makes me a curiosity. Do not make eye contact, use your peripheral vision and make sure that they can stop, stepping in front of a motorcycle or a rickshaw or a slower moving car....good!, stepping in front of a bus....just as bad here as anywhere else.
So, once on the other side of the road I have to decide between left or right, now I know for sure the train station is left but the pedestrian flow is to the right and I am pretty sure I need to approach the train from the backside based on my read of the maps. So I go right and a short distance later there is a break in the fence that people are going through so I follow. It is only a worn path leading down and over the tracks then back up to a settlement, possibly Rabale. Now that I am on a city street I definitely have to go left to reach the train station. The road is narrow and double lane with no sidewalks and shared by all types of traffic; pedestrians, motorcycles, cars, buses and heavy trucks.
Once I could see the train station in the distance, I was reasonably confident I could get there but when I got close, I found the same problem, just a scrabble path to get to to the station. After navigating this path I made it to the train station. It is very bare bones, a large, mostly open building with no services. At this point I realized I was thirsty, I had been out for about 30 minutes. Now where I live if I had been walking for 30 minutes I would have passed three Variety Stores, a grocery store, a Tim Hortons and a McDonalds but even though today I had passed multiple businesses none of them sold water or pop or even appeared to have electricity. No choice, I had to walk the 30 minutes back before I could get a drink, so first lesson learned, carry a drink.
With a little more exploring, I found a faster way to the train station, cutting my 30 minute walk to less than 15. So by Saturday I had determined that there was a mall in Vashi and though I am not much of a mall shopper in NA, finding a large number of stores in one place was a very attractive option at this point. I requested a first class ticket and was charged 20rp (.32Cdn) based on the web site I was expecting to charged more. I was right because when I asked around, I was told I had a second class ticket. This particular train was a more rundown version of a New York Subway Train, quite full, with more room for standing than sitting. I made a friend in the train station who stayed with me all the way to Vashi, we chatted about differences between our countries and I asked questions
about stations as we passed.
He said the ride would be 25 minutes which it did not seem like on a map. As the train goes through the four stations it really only slows down and people are expected to jump on or off (no accounting for age). The Mall was right across the road from the station as promised but it was here that I was the victim of my first scam. I had read about the many scams to which I could be subjected, this one was not on the list. An apparent Good Samaritan approached me saying there was something on my ear. I am in the sub tropics so this could be a lot of things, he has a little medical fanny pack on and he pulls out some tweezers and starts cleaning my ears. Once again, sub tropics, seems like a good idea to have clean ears, so I am torn, allow a stranger who seems like a professional assist me or walk away. Unfortunately, my natural politeness won and I stood there, but when he pulled a wad of ear wax about the size of a marble out of my ear (that I had just cleaned that morning), I realized this was a scam. Even then it was still difficult to extricate myself with his insistence and my politeness getting in the way but when he pulls out a card telling me I owe him 500rp ($8Cdn) I begin to walk away but a pack of ear cleaners are following me telling me I owe money. Since I live in a downtown area in my Hometown, I had already developed the trick of keeping a small amount of money in one pocket so when a panhandler asks for money, I can give him this money without pulling out a lot of other money, second panhandler gets nothing but I point to the first and say he got it. So, I was using this strategy here, I had 100rp (1.60Cdn) in one pocket and I gave it to the guy to get him off my back. They argued more but by then they were arguing to my back. Another lesson learned.
I next had an encounter with some street urchins, two very dirty but still cute girls who wanted money. Once again, this is an outlying area so the number of street poor is much lower. I expect when I visit a larger center that I will see an entire different side to street life. I was prepared for these two, I had cookies, far better than money for both of us. With cookies, I do not need to worry about adults approaching me and the children are more likely going to get to eat the cookies, since the adults will take the money away. They trailed me for a while trying to get more out of me, 'Pepsi' appeared to be the only English word they knew but they gave up after a short while. The first mall was a waste of time selling only up-market Indian goods but in the second mall I found more recognizable brands.
Getting back was a bit of a chore, leaving there were only two tracks, going north, going south. In Vashi there were four tracks and my ticket did not say which was the right track. After asking about 5 people I was fairly confident I had the correct track and fortune favoured me so I returned to Rabale, tired, safe and a little smarter.
But why is everyone staring?
Since I am without a car and do not intend to get one. (See post about a typical Indian day on the roads.) I am left with a few options; walking, taxi, autoricksaw or train or some combination thereof. My first trip out on Friday was to simply find the Train Station. Most addresses here are far too complicated to understand even by the locals and maps such as Google map and Mapquest are not accurate enough, oft times misplacing a building (not their fault, if the locals don't know where it is, why should a mapsite). So I use a combination of sites at the same time, Satellite maps from Wikimapia or Google Earth in conjunction with Google Map or Mapquest. I am fine so long as I have a baseline or the building is big enough or described as being beside something I can find. I had an idea of where the train station was and on the map it was very large so it seemed a good start.
Unfortunately, the first step is to cross the highway, there is a light of a sort but it is a six lane road and the light only stops traffic in one direction. Native Indian pedestrians have developed two strategies for crossing roads, either be fleet of foot or be fearless. Since I am not fleet of foot, I have adopted the fearless strategy. I have the slight advantage of being six foot tall and white which makes me a curiosity. Do not make eye contact, use your peripheral vision and make sure that they can stop, stepping in front of a motorcycle or a rickshaw or a slower moving car....good!, stepping in front of a bus....just as bad here as anywhere else.
So, once on the other side of the road I have to decide between left or right, now I know for sure the train station is left but the pedestrian flow is to the right and I am pretty sure I need to approach the train from the backside based on my read of the maps. So I go right and a short distance later there is a break in the fence that people are going through so I follow. It is only a worn path leading down and over the tracks then back up to a settlement, possibly Rabale. Now that I am on a city street I definitely have to go left to reach the train station. The road is narrow and double lane with no sidewalks and shared by all types of traffic; pedestrians, motorcycles, cars, buses and heavy trucks.
Once I could see the train station in the distance, I was reasonably confident I could get there but when I got close, I found the same problem, just a scrabble path to get to to the station. After navigating this path I made it to the train station. It is very bare bones, a large, mostly open building with no services. At this point I realized I was thirsty, I had been out for about 30 minutes. Now where I live if I had been walking for 30 minutes I would have passed three Variety Stores, a grocery store, a Tim Hortons and a McDonalds but even though today I had passed multiple businesses none of them sold water or pop or even appeared to have electricity. No choice, I had to walk the 30 minutes back before I could get a drink, so first lesson learned, carry a drink.
With a little more exploring, I found a faster way to the train station, cutting my 30 minute walk to less than 15. So by Saturday I had determined that there was a mall in Vashi and though I am not much of a mall shopper in NA, finding a large number of stores in one place was a very attractive option at this point. I requested a first class ticket and was charged 20rp (.32Cdn) based on the web site I was expecting to charged more. I was right because when I asked around, I was told I had a second class ticket. This particular train was a more rundown version of a New York Subway Train, quite full, with more room for standing than sitting. I made a friend in the train station who stayed with me all the way to Vashi, we chatted about differences between our countries and I asked questionsabout stations as we passed.
He said the ride would be 25 minutes which it did not seem like on a map. As the train goes through the four stations it really only slows down and people are expected to jump on or off (no accounting for age). The Mall was right across the road from the station as promised but it was here that I was the victim of my first scam. I had read about the many scams to which I could be subjected, this one was not on the list. An apparent Good Samaritan approached me saying there was something on my ear. I am in the sub tropics so this could be a lot of things, he has a little medical fanny pack on and he pulls out some tweezers and starts cleaning my ears. Once again, sub tropics, seems like a good idea to have clean ears, so I am torn, allow a stranger who seems like a professional assist me or walk away. Unfortunately, my natural politeness won and I stood there, but when he pulled a wad of ear wax about the size of a marble out of my ear (that I had just cleaned that morning), I realized this was a scam. Even then it was still difficult to extricate myself with his insistence and my politeness getting in the way but when he pulls out a card telling me I owe him 500rp ($8Cdn) I begin to walk away but a pack of ear cleaners are following me telling me I owe money. Since I live in a downtown area in my Hometown, I had already developed the trick of keeping a small amount of money in one pocket so when a panhandler asks for money, I can give him this money without pulling out a lot of other money, second panhandler gets nothing but I point to the first and say he got it. So, I was using this strategy here, I had 100rp (1.60Cdn) in one pocket and I gave it to the guy to get him off my back. They argued more but by then they were arguing to my back. Another lesson learned.
I next had an encounter with some street urchins, two very dirty but still cute girls who wanted money. Once again, this is an outlying area so the number of street poor is much lower. I expect when I visit a larger center that I will see an entire different side to street life. I was prepared for these two, I had cookies, far better than money for both of us. With cookies, I do not need to worry about adults approaching me and the children are more likely going to get to eat the cookies, since the adults will take the money away. They trailed me for a while trying to get more out of me, 'Pepsi' appeared to be the only English word they knew but they gave up after a short while. The first mall was a waste of time selling only up-market Indian goods but in the second mall I found more recognizable brands.
Getting back was a bit of a chore, leaving there were only two tracks, going north, going south. In Vashi there were four tracks and my ticket did not say which was the right track. After asking about 5 people I was fairly confident I had the correct track and fortune favoured me so I returned to Rabale, tired, safe and a little smarter.
But why is everyone staring?
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