Lazy Sunday

The Cindrella Hotel produces a colourful brochure entitled 'Why visit Siliguri?'. This basically suggests that Siliguri is a great place to stay en route to somewhere else. Lonely Planet pretty much says the same without the benefit of colour pictures.  D's plan included Siliguri as he had hoped to travel on the metre gauge railcar between Siliguri Junction and Bagdogra. This was introduced a couple of years back so that Siliguri Jn could claim the honour of being the only place in India with trains on three gauges. It ran on two days a week,  made no commercial sense and has disappeared from the timetables sometime in the last few months. This is what happens when politicians play trains.

So we have a free day until 7 p.m. when we need to go to the station to catch our train. Check out is noon so we have plenty of time. R goes for it big style at breakfast with both uttapams and porridge. The duty manager lets D use their back office PC to book and print one last rail ticket, a short ride from Bhubaneswar that can only be booked 10 days in advance. We pack, watch the wedding guests depart and the works team disassemble the pavilions. A lot of work for one night. 

At noon we put our bags in store and head out without a plan. Scary. There is a clear blue sky and, by our standards,  a hot sun. We stand in the dust at the side of the highway and hope for an auto. There are plenty of share autos which operate a route like a bus service. We don't know where they are going, we don't know where we want to go and anyway they all look full. There are no regular private hire autos to be seen so we start walking. 

After about a hundred yards a share auto pulls up alongside.  D asks the driver the first thing which comes into his head "City centre?", driver nods and we climb in. There are three ladies facing and a chap on the same seat as us. Shortly afterwards another chap joins our seat which is now very cosy. One of the ladies asks "Which country?". Her English is not bad and we have a bit of a chat. At one crossroads she points out the clock tower. Every town in India has one and at least now we have a reference point to ask for when we get lost. About half a mile further on the auto stops at another crossroads and everyone deboards. The fare is Rs10 each. Jolly good value.

We walk along a main road lined with shops. It is Sunday so not all are open but it is still quite busy. For the first time on this trip we are concious of being stared at. Turning down a side street in search of shade we find ourselves in the high fashion quarter, which leads into a lively market area. We always enjoy a good market and this is one of the best, unless you are trying to buy tissues. R has runny nose, probably the pollution. Everybody wants us to look at their stall. One comedian tries to sell us a hot water bottle. There are food stalls including one doing fish and chips just as we entered the Hong Kong Market, a couple of alleys selling Chinese stuff. Then we found the fruit and veg market where there both red and orange carrots side by side. We wandered for nearly two hours , having a great time, swapping some banter and spending nothing.

Then we did something unforgiveable.  We went to Cafe Coffee Day. This chain is a sort of MacDonalds without burgers or working WiFi. The one in Siliguri did have a/c and a clean loo, although the tea was a cup of hottish water with a separate teabag. At around 4 times the going rate we thought that they might actually make it for us. Here D was able to get data on his phone,  conspicuously absent for the last few days. A glance at the maps application shows that we are but a short walk from the Clock Tower so we head there, hoping to board a share auto. These are all full but there is a stand of regular autos and we engage one for the trip back to the Cindrella.

When we get there the roof terrace is in the shade so we occupy a table and engage in some light bird watching and blogging. A couple of beers get us through to supper time when we indulge in dosas, a speciality of the Cindrella's South Indian cook. By the time we have seen these off our car has arrived.  NJP is not too chaotic and we find the AC waiting room. Once again we have been allocated a 2 berth coupe. When our train pulls in the H1 coach is almost exactly opposite the waiting room.  For the first time in about a hundred Indian train trips D notices that the door at one end of each coach is marked Entrance and at the other end is Exit. The path of learning never ends.