The Train Ride to Churchgate

The High Court

The first thing that we do when we reach Mumbai is to book the first means of transport to leave the city and head to the beaches of Goa as quickly as possible.  We end up getting seats for the first overnight bus departing in the evening and spend the day doing a walking tour of the major attractions in Churchgate and Colaba such as the Oval Maiden, the National Gallery of Modern Art, Victoria Terminus and the Gateway to India. 

Gateway to India

To get back to our hotel, we have to take a one hour local train for 8 rupees (that’s around $0.20).  Taking the train in India is in itself quite an experience.  You have locals jumping on and off the train while it is still moving and it’s quite a sight seeing a local running across the platform carrying a huge bundle of clothing on his head and and eventually jumping onto the train as it is pulling away from the station.   

In India, the train compartments are divided by gender.  I rode with Vic in the men’s carriage on the way to the city centre but due to the incessant staring and getting “accidentally” bumped into (which coincidentally, is always an elbow to boob or a hand to ass grab) and since we were riding back during rush hour, we thought it would be best to split up on the ride back. 

The women’s carriage was fantastic!  Filled with women wearing colourful saris and girls selling trinkets and jewellery, my compartment had lots of space, digital screens that tell you what the next stop is and I find a nice seat by the window.  The men’s compartment was a different story altogether.  It was a standing only compartment and since it was rush hour, poor Vic had to spend the entire ride crammed like a sardine dodging people coming in and out carrying anything from towels to sheet metal. 

Vic came out of the ride exhausted with sore feet from standing for an hour. I came out with two hair clips and a bottle of nail polish.   

 

Not always so bad being female in a supposedly patriarchal society.