Penny here,

"Wanakum" is "Hello" in Tamil, the language spoken here in Tamil Nadu, India. Today our plan was to leave on the train for Hyderabad, north of Tamil Nadu, in the state of Andra Pradesh. Sounds simple right? You get on a train, and some hours later you get off the train with your luggage. NOT!!! With our bikes and bags, I am sorry to say, this was not the case!! After unpacking my bike, we realized a part of it, the derailer, had been bent during the flight or in transit. Bummer. Not to worry though, Tad, being the bike genius he is, with the help from a local bike repair man, managed to get my bike back to semi-working condition. Mr. Iswariah helped a ton in this whole process also, especially translating for us! Thanks!!

I can’t say, however, that I was of much help at all. My stomach didn’t like something in India and it was letting me know, big time! I rested and Tad ate before we headed off to the Central Train station in Chennai. It was my first time on the bike in India with it all loaded, so I gave Tad instructions to GO SLOW and to keep checking on me to be sure I was right behind him the whole time. I have to tell you, it was quite a thrill riding out into that street with buses zooming by and motorcycles and rickshaws squeezing in all the other gaps! We hired a guy with a bicycle rickshaw to go ahead of us and lead the way, which was really nice, but he was definitely more comfortable with the traffic than I was!! At one point a bus turned in between Tad and I, separating us. I joined him shortly, but it was still a little nerve racking for a rookie! 

Finally, we made it to the station. We were quite the spectacle with our bikes as we wheeled them to the luggage office. For simplicity sake (we thought) we wanted to keep all the gear attached to the bikes. We were told this wasn’t possible, and then multiple officials came and looked at the bags disapprovingly. I was already not in the best mood because coolies and various other people had surrounded us. We finally got an "OK" to keep the gear on, but it had to be packaged (covered by gunny sacks and string). Already being tired and hot we gave in and let one of the coolies pack it. Either he was new at the sport of packing or he was just really slow. Either way, it wasn’t working. We were then notified that we, in fact, could take the bikes on loaded, but it would cost about three times as much as our tickets. Realizing that it wasn’t worth it we pulled everything off and weighed the bags separately on scales and then packed them in the gunny sacks all over again.

Then, with two minutes until take-off time we ran down the train platform to our train car (with my luggage in our hands, as carry-on luggage), which happened to be at almost the very end of the train. We got ripped-off with the packing guy who packed just a portion of the bags before Tad jumped in and finished it so we wouldn’t miss the train. After all that and the hassle with the bikes, we sank into our seats with big sighs of relief and prepared for the overnight ride.

We both admitted that we had learned a few lessons for the next time we embark on a train adventure with our bikes.

As it grew dark, with the palm trees outside, silhouetted by an orange sunset, and a cool breeze blowing in through the bars on the windows, we realized things were not as crazy as they seemed. It didn’t take me long at all to be lulled asleep by the rhythm of the train.

Penny

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