A wedding is being held in out hotel in about four days time. This is going to be a big wedding, involving local politicians, military, business people, and other dignitaries. As part of the preparations a marquee is being constructed in the hotel courtyard, occupying the entire courtyard, and about three stories high. During the period we have been in the hotel, there have been multiple sightings of the bridal party, or some relatives grouping associated with the bridal party, scurrying about the hotel at all sorts of different times. So when I came down in the morning and saw the pictured table in the dining room, I naturally assumed that it was something to do with the wedding.It was only when I entered the dining room a little later, with Erica, our tour leader, that I realised that this was something prepared by the hotel to celebrate my birthday. They had been notified by Erica, who had all the details from our passports and had come up with the above decoration. The centre of the table consisted of small presents from some of the members of the party - nothing that could not be put together when people are travelling, but very touching for the thought that had gone into them. Erica then asked the hotel to make a cake, which they did, delivering the cake just before we were due to en-bus in order to travel on. After a brief cake cutting ceremony, the cake was cut up into portions and loaded into boxes for consumption on the bus. The hotel also chipped in with a present - a perspex memento of the Bodhi tree stupa.
Anyway there were some discussions in the group about age, birthdays and the like, which lead to the second substantial surprise of the day. One of the women in the group and I found that we had attended the same (small) primary school at the same time, though one year apart. Discussion about this reminded both of us of memories from those days - now of course a very long time ago. We had not been at the same infants school, as the primary school had feeders from a number of (even smaller) infants schools - me from a three class infants class, her from an even smaller local school.
Once onto the bus, with cake duly eaten, we set off for Patna. The drive to Patna was not surprising, but the traffic in Patna was nearly as bad as any I've seen anywhere in the world, including the infamous traffic jams on Beijing's many ring roads. Erika had arranged for a representative of the Indian tour company she had used to guide us through the traffic of Patna; to take us onto a restaurant to get a meal before catching the train; to arrange for porters for our luggage to take it to the station; guiding us to the platform for our train; and finally waiting with us to ensure we got onto the right train when it eventually turned up about an hour and a half late. This all seemed a bit over the top, but as the hours went on, it became clear what a necessity all this was. I have negotiated on my own railway systems in three countries that do not have a latin script for their writing - Chinese, Thai and Russian - but I am not sure I could have negotiated the railway system here. There appeared to be no display boards with information about the trains; what writing there was seemed to be only permanent notices and only in Hindi; the announcements which were nominally in Hindi (I assume) and English, were inaudible in both languages; it appeared as though the platform kept changing; and our transfer guide was obtaining information by continually phoning a control tower some distance away from the station; and the station was absolutely heaving with people everywhere.
Eventually we caught our train and sorted out our berths, and so to bed and a journey that would end about midday the following day. We then were picked up by jeeps to be taken on to Gangtok. Total journey time ended up being about 30 hours. A tiring journey, taking us to much more interesting terrain.