I have a love of trains and one of my favourite movies is about a train ride through India – The North West Frontier (also called called Fire over India). Starring Lauren Bacall if I remember correctly, who sadly died just recently.

The story centres around a small Hindu prince rescued by the British before his father is murdered by Muslims. The British have to get the boy away from the rebellion and to safety, and they do so by train, a small train one carriage and a whole conclave of different people travelling together.

I can remember that my dad used to wake me up when I was very little to watch it with him. There were a few shows he would do that and this was always one of them and my favourite. Although I think I mostly slept I can still remember being entranced by the movie, hence I have a copy.

And here I sit on my first Indian train ride and it is somewhat different to say the least. But as I look out my window at the landscape raging past there is a certain similarity.

The plains stretch out forever both ways. On my left I can see distant large mountains framed by golden light as the sun descends, and on my right I can see the sky tuning grey over uncountable fields of rice trimmed by the odd group of palms. A break in the scenery sees a thatched village with kids playing volleyball in the dirt barefoot.

As we left the station in Madras I saw the backs of slums lined up to the railway tracks, kids playing in torrid mud and filth with boars and cows, and water tinged with a deadly luminescent glow but a child stand barefoot in it playing nonetheless. A patch of dirt opens to a soccer field and the locals fight it out as a gentlemen squats next to the tracks to take a shit while watching the train go by ( a very frequent scene as I was to discover) It’s a surreal scene and more so than anything I have seen yet. It’s a simple basic scene of a basic sense of simple living. The sheer amount of rubbish breaks any belief that the place can be cleaned and fixed, so unsurmountable is the filth and rubbish and so intrenched, it’s a beautiful and yet horrific scene of raw life. And it’s not restricted to the slums. Everywhere along the great rails of India at every town or village the filth and degradation is piled up.

After heading into town I had some food and explored whilst I waited for the festival to start.

There were army soldiers everywhere manned with AK-47 rifles a new an interesting experience.

I found a good location and waited for the procession to begin. The festival lasted about 5 hours and had about 70 elephants! Hundreds of dancers weaving In between with drummers pounding away into the night.

The procession was amazing so much colour and dance and energy.

See the photos on my Facebook.

After my encounters in Colombo I managed to get ripped off by a young lad who was leaving the trade Center in the fort area (Central Colombo) who after walking and talking for about 10 minutes offered to show me a temple that was having a festival. As I would later find out, apparently festival simply means 10% discount at the local gem rip off merchant.

The temple was a Buddhist temple and was utterly littered in relics and artefacts, from ancient pottery to colonial era wares including an ancient Chubb safe. As we were leaving he announced that there was a special at another temple which simply turned out to be a gem merchant.

Fuck knows why but I ended up allowing myself to get conned into buying a cheap stone, don’t ask me I don’t understand why either I may have been a bit overwhelmed this day.

We get back into a tuk tuk and it occurs to me that it’s the same one hanging around taking us from place to place we get dropped off back where we started and the driver demands 6000 rupees! Or $50 Australian and the young gent just looked at me? I stood there arguing with them until I finally caved and paid the driver and stormed off angrily. I was late as i needed to head back to the hotel to meet Asanga, a friend of CJ who was going to help me out travelling round Sri Lanka.

Walking back still fuming another tuk tuk driver pulled up next to me and asked if I wanted a lift I snarled at him that he was too expensive and the poor mans face dropped and he started pleading with me to let him take me and for me to name the price. I hoped in, to give the process a second chance and the driver turned out to be an incredibly friendly chap named Saman who was a certified tour guide and honest tuk tuk driver. He gave me a quick tour on the way back to my hotel for no extra charge and asked me about my plans, of which I had none. After meeting with Asanga I had a rough plan in my head. Head Central to Kandy and then to the Coast North to Jaffna and then down and back around to Colombo along the coast.

I called up Saman and we agreed to depart tomorrow for Kandy and he would take me their in his wife’s car and show me around for $80. Not too bad. Kandy is about 3-4 hours away by road.

The next morning I met Saman and another gentlemen driving the car who I assumed saman had arranged so he could play tour guide. As it turns out Saman failed to bring his car instead hired a taxi and didn’t tell me. so we set off meter running unbeknownst to me.

It was my birthday. I hadn’t told Saman and didn’t. I was feeling a bit disillusioned from the previous 48 hours and a bit overwhelmed. Saman made stops at fruit places and we ate pineapple and rambutan and other exotic fruits as we drove on. We finally arrived at the elephant sanctuary where we stopped and I got to go for a 5 minute elephant ride and watch the elephants bathe. While watching an elephant a gigantic monitor swam down the river, biggest lizard I’ve ever seen, easy 2+meters. It looked more like a Komodo dragon. And it was amazing I completely ignored everything else until the beast had left.

I do like elephants and riding an elephant is a fun experience, you don’t feel particularly settled when on an elephant. After the ride we got toured through the elephant cemetery and then the museum. As we left we saw a snake charmer blowing on his pipe to two cobras emerging from baskets and snapping at him and each other whilst he balanced a python around his neck.

As we were driving away we pulled over to an elderly couple nursing three porcupines of horrendous looks. So got to pat the creatures and keep a quill.

We set off again and our next stop was a spice farm, the spice farms are fake farms on the way to Kandy that attract tourists to sell products that are actually made from base ingredients grown in large factories some where else. Anyway you walk around this tiny area with a guide who shows you all the different trees and herbs and spices they grow, aloe, turmeric, sandalwood, everything and them you get to see and smell certain products and how they work. Of particular interest was a hair removal creme that once applied for ten minutes could be wiped off along with all hair in that area. It works, I tried it on my arm. it has no skin irritation at all they boast and I certainly found none. According to my guide it’s what all Sri Lankan woman use on their delicate area and they don’t shave or use razors. Applying this creme three times, once every ten days will leave you hairless for up to and apparently beyond a year. With no irritation.

We left the spice farm and I fell asleep to wake up as we were entering. Kandy. We’d been travelling about 3 hours. Saman had the driver help me fid a hotel and we found one eventually. Not easy as the festival that was happening in Kandy was attracting everyone.

It was here he decided to announce the issue with the driver, who was demanding $120 for his services. I was livid with saman! I paid the driver and then saman wanted money, $10 for his day so he could get the bus back as apparently the taxi driver wasn’t taking him back, I couldn’t understand and didn’t particularly want to. I have saman a handful of Thai baht as it was all I had left (about $5 worth) and went to my room to rest before venturing out into. Kandy for the festival.