A weekend of rest and and recuperation

I arrived in India in the middle of July, attending a month of in-country orientation training on Delhi before travell ing to Koraput, arriving there 23rd August.  I realised recently how tired I was feeling.  I have of course had days off, rest days and festival holidays but most of these days have been spent just doing basic chores with the occasional day trip somewhere.  I've also had two trips back to Delhi but these were to attend workshops which, although a change from normal work were not relaxing or real time off.  As it was my birthday at the weekend I decided to have a few days away with my friend Sheila, recently arrived in nearby Rayagada who also celebrated her birthday recently.

We decided to go to Vishakapatnam (often known as Vizag ), a city at the north of Andhra Pradesh, a couple of hundred kilometres south-east of Koraput, on the coast in the Bay of Bengal.   After a bit of a battle with my internet connection I managed to buy rail tickets for Sheila to get from Rayagada to Koraput on Saturday then for us to travel together to Vizag and taking a slightly different return route (to fit in with the available seats) of Vizag to Rayagada on Monday evening then me to travel on to Koraput on Tuesday.  Easy, we thought.

Sheila arrived on Saturday only slightly late.  I found an auto driver to take me to the station to meet her and managed to do a deal for him to take us to my house for us to spend a few hours before returning to collect us and transport us back to the station for the next leg of the journey (directing anyone to my house is a challenge given the lack of house name or road name, it can be awkward living without the benefit of an address).  Safely on our way on the next train we had a bit of a delay at one station where we stopped for about an hour without obvious reason but arriving safely if a little late at our hotel in Vizag.  My guidebook described the place as looking like the inside of an Ambassador car and although I'm not sure that's how I'd describe it, it was very nice and we had a really nice dinner of prawns.  I then luxuriated in a nice hot bath with bubble bath.  The first bath I've had since leaving UK.  Bliss!

The next day we decided to hire a car with driver for the day to take us round a few of the sights of Vizag.  We were taken to a couple of temples, a film studio where we walked round the set of some soap opera and watched some actors being choreographed while practicing dance moves, a park where we watched women playing games and beautiful Rishikonda beach for a long walk where I had to go paddling in the sea.  We had a nice lunch of crab and prawns at a restaurant near the beach supplemented by yet more prawns and chicken for dinner and another hot bath in the evening.  It seemed a nice way to spend a birthday.

The next day, Monday, we walked along the beach near the hotel, returned to the hotel for a late lunch of yet more prawns (we can't get these in Koraput or Rayagada) before getting the train back to Rayagada in the evening where we went to Sheila's and I slept on the floor.  We had a fairly leisurely morning there before I packed away my sleeping bag and weekend bag, preparing to get my last train south to Koraput.   Which is where things started to get tricky.

I had an SMS message from Jon back home in the UK, telling me he'd seen Corey (Koraput VSO colleague) posting something about a bandh on Facebook.  A bandh is a strike.  This worried me a little and not having access to the internet where I was, I asked him to check the Indian rail website for my train.  All trains to Koraput were cancelled.  I phoned Dusmant back in Koraput (forgetting that he as on holiday as it was Republic Day) and asked for his help.  He told me to get the Hirakhand Express the next morning, another train due to leave late morning or the Howrah Express in the evening.  I didn't want to get the Hirakhand Express as it leaves Rayagada at 5:30, it's too far to walk (along a very dangerous road) and it's impossible to get an auto to collect from Sheila's house early morning.  I made a quick call back home to ask Jon to check the rail timetable for the next day.  The only train going to Koraput on Wednesday was the Hirakhand Express, presumably all the the rolling stock for all other train services was in the wrong place after the strike.  A cup of tea was needed to take me back to my previously relaxed state.

Then Sheila had an idea and went round to see her landlady, who lives next door, returning a few minutes later having got her landlady's assistance to find a solution.  The auto driver who takes her daughter Rinki to school today had agreed to come out to collect me.  Which was good news except it meant another night sleeping on the floor then getting up soon after 4:00am to be sure I was ready and packed up on time and Sheila was woken up by the alarm and disturbance as well.  We waited.  And waited.  At 5:30 we gave up and went back to our beds as that was when the train was due to leave.  At 6:30 the doorbell went.  It was Rinki, asking what had happened.  We explained the auto had not come so we were trying to get more sleep.  At 7:30 the doorbell went again, this time Rinki with her mother, offering more assistance the following day.  I decided I really needed to try to get back to Koraput today or I'd end up missing yet another day of work.  It seemed a bit early to make phone calls so I sent an SMS message to Dusmant asking for his help to get a taxi.  At 8:00 he phoned me to work out a plan followed by another call half an hour later to tell me the taxi would arrive at 10:30.  Good news although I thought it seemed a little optimistic to expect the taxi to arrive by 10:30 as it had taken me around 3 hours to do the same journey the previous week.  I spent some time with Sheila in her NGO office, looking at some of the things she'd been working on before leaving Rayagada at around 12:15.  The end of a nice weekend away.

We eventually found out that there were 2 strikes, one called by Congress and the other by Naxalites (Maoists), affecting road and rail traffic, educational, business and commercial work.  Fortunately the drive home was good, travelling through interesting scenery with a good driver, stopping briefly on the way to see his sister and young nephew.  I was amused to see a jeep travelling along with a good load of people on board with the addition of goats both on the roof and more peering out of the back