What the hell was I thinking? A sleeper car in India without earplugs???? hellllooo? I guess I was just up for another experience. So I got one. And it wasn't so bad, except for the snoring, the smells and the cold. I still had a really cool dream, another pretty perfect India dream. So where to begin, where to begin ....
let's begin in Rishikesh, India where I had been Monday afternoon through Friday morning. On Thursday night, it struck me that I was behind the eight ball again because I had not booked my train ticket yet from Haridwar back to Delhi. I wanted to be back by Friday night and knew the train leaves daily at about 6:00 p.m., back in Delhi a little before 11:00 p.m. However, I also remembered that in wanting to get myself up north I wasn't able to leave the day after I bought the ticket, but the following day, and maybe, perhaps, there could be a similar situation on the return trip. Are you following me here? So the kindly fellow at the desk of the Green View Hotel got on the computer for me to book the return ticket. I was right .... no tickets until Monday, December 15, the day I am due to fly back to Salt Lake City. This will not do. So other options include, taking the bus (an all nighter), hiring a taxi, or booking the sleeper train.
Let me now recall the last time I was booked in a sleeper car. This would be back in 1989 or so probably in Europe somewhere, but very well could have been in Egypt. The Egypt thing was my main point of reference here since it is another, less developed sort of country depending upon what you are considering. The fact that during that trip I was on a five day, four-star tour didn't really sink in so much. That sleeper car actually had things like sheets. I should pull out my old London journal from that year to see if I'm pulling that out of my ass. Anyway. Let's just say, it wasn't so bad. Debbie and I had our own compartment and it was just fine.
Kindly reception guy (I wish I got his name because we shared some laughs and he had a nice smile) told me there are six people to a compartment in these sleeper cars, but I still thought, no problem, so they are probably just a bit bigger or maybe we just need to take turns when the conductor(?) comes around to put the beds up or down, right??? Ha Ha Ha.
So leaving the Green View, me, my suitcase, my courier type bag, the driver and no helmets
(I actually love not having helmets in any one of the rides I got here) ......
...... all hop onto the scooter and head through the market, over the Jhula (bridge, they are pedestrian only, sort of), and over to the bus and taxi area so I can catch a ride back to Haridwar where I can take the train. I love these motorcycle and scooter rides I am getting. I ask him if he'll take me all the way to Haridwar, half in jest, and he tells me if it were during the day---yes, but at night---too dangerous. I ask him whether or not I should use one of the auto rickshaws, vikrams, or tempos, to go back there and he quickly tells me, "no, no, much too dangerous at night." I'm not sure if he is saying this because of the questionable nature of the drivers, though I'm pretty sure that is not what he is saying, but more because of the road conditions, visibility, and number of drivers on the road.
Whenever I wince, or make any sort of noise to indicate my immediate sense of impending collisions, these guys all laugh at me. This one asks me if I drive at home. I tell him, "yes, I have a station wagon much bigger than any of these cars ..." Again, he laughs. I'm not a bad driver, really.
(I actually love not having helmets in any one of the rides I got here) ......
...... all hop onto the scooter and head through the market, over the Jhula (bridge, they are pedestrian only, sort of), and over to the bus and taxi area so I can catch a ride back to Haridwar where I can take the train. I love these motorcycle and scooter rides I am getting. I ask him if he'll take me all the way to Haridwar, half in jest, and he tells me if it were during the day---yes, but at night---too dangerous. I ask him whether or not I should use one of the auto rickshaws, vikrams, or tempos, to go back there and he quickly tells me, "no, no, much too dangerous at night." I'm not sure if he is saying this because of the questionable nature of the drivers, though I'm pretty sure that is not what he is saying, but more because of the road conditions, visibility, and number of drivers on the road.
Whenever I wince, or make any sort of noise to indicate my immediate sense of impending collisions, these guys all laugh at me. This one asks me if I drive at home. I tell him, "yes, I have a station wagon much bigger than any of these cars ..." Again, he laughs. I'm not a bad driver, really.
On a side note---- a little info from the Lonely Planet guide ....
"An autorickshaw is a noisy three-wheel device powered by a two-stroke motorcycle engine with a driver up front and seats for two (or sometimes more) passengers behind. Most lack doors and just have a canvas top. They're also known as .... autos and tuk-tuks.
Tempos are somewhat like a large autorickshaw. These ungainly looking three-wheel devices operate like minibuses or shared taxis along fixed routes ..... You may come across vikrams in some areas. These are another name for tempos or sometimes a larger version of the standard tempo."
Then I'm at the bus stop .... After spending about a half hour getting countless side looks, offers for autorickshaws and vikrams, there is one particular taxi driver who has said he'll take me, and only me, to Haridwar for 550 Rs. This is about $11.00 for an hour ride. I initially think this is too much, try to bargain with him and play the stubborn, I'm-holding-my-ground-on-my-price kind of woman, but he tells me no, and basically he knows he's got me on the waiting game. Every once in awhile he saunders nearby, and then walks past. After maybe another 15 minutes he goes to the roasted peanut cart I'm standing next to, buys himself some nuts wrapped in newspaper, and offers me some. Of course, I cave and say, 550? okay, show me your car .....
This guys drives like a complete madman. He may have two daughters, 14 and 6 years old, but damn, he has no hesitation about passing every car, truck, motorcycle, vikram, and autorickshaw we come across. I start doing the prayer thing fairly early on, the positive affirmations, the visualizations of me walking into the train station, me getting safely onto the plane to leave India, me hugging my children. I also, unfortunately, start trying to figure out how I will throw my body onto the floor when we crash into the oncoming vehicle, that would be this next one .... no, this next one ... no, this next one ... no, this next one .... you get the idea.
When we get into Haridwar, I have some strange affinity for the place with its mishmash of horses, cows, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists who blow their horns with abandon, horse-drawn carts, cycle rickshaws, autorickshaws, and its twinkling white lights in the store fronts. I do not want to be in the taxi who takes out the next stray dog, or small child or old beggar, so I tell him repeatedly, "I'm in no hurry. It's okay. Okay. You can slow down." He barely does this, but it does seem to make some difference.
NOW I'm at the train station. I have my ticket to Delhi. I know my train, just need to find the platform, and Kindly Reception Guy told me there is even a place at the train station where I can check my bag while I leave the station for dinner. It's about 9:00 p.m., I haven't eaten, and my train doesn't leave until 11:20, so I'm fine to head off for awhile. When I walk into the station it looks like the scenes in airports in winter when families have been unable to catch a flight for days and have hunkered down on the floor wherever they feel like it because they are so damn tired and just do. Or maybe the scene in Gone With the Wind where Scarlett goes to help with the wounded and there are row after row of men on the ground around her. Except here the men, women and children have their wool blankets over their heads, a tad more like an actual corpse. Some have decided a layer of newspaper might be a good idea rather than simply laying on the train station ground.
I am remembering this summer when Zach and Andrew and I took the overnight flight to JFK and were then headed into Grand Central Station and poor, tired little Zach had HAD IT, and threw himself down on the sidewalk in New York. I had about two suitcases and just had to wait until he decided he could walk again, but the New Yorkers who were walking by us on the sidewalk looked at me like I was insane to let my child lay down on the sidewalk. Grand Central Station seems like a place you could lick the floors compared to the surface here. Again, I exaggerate, but still.
SO SORRY .... I didn't finish this post and hope I have notes somewhere about the details of the Sleeper car back to Delhi. I was amazed at the volume of the men's snoring, the smells that would wake me out of a sound sleep after we had stopped at a station midway along because the bathrooms were only about 10 feet from my "bed" and there wasn't the wind from the train pulling the odor away, the hard plastic covered board to sleep on, the sheer number of cots in one car ....
suffice to say I could have gotten a seat and done just as fine. I'm glad I did it, but I'm also glad I'm not on there at this very moment.
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