Train Tracks

Katherine was trailing behind because I was cheating and pushing my heavy sack rested on the bar of my rental bike. Before turning off the main street to return it I waited so she could see my departure. As you can guess while I jumped through hoops with the bike mechanic who insisted I'd had a flat tire my primary concern was that Kate hadn't made her way the two hundred metres to the shop. Rushing the rental return it still seemed to take half an hour, leaving only that much time again until our train departure. So where is Katherine? We'd briefly discussed her carrying on to the station since she was anxious about being late for the train, so I headed towards it too under that assumption but worrying the entire ten minute walk that it wasn't. Imagine my relief as I spotted her red MEC duffle bag across the busy hall where she was peering up at the departure board.

Coolly I slid up and asked "Which platform do we leave from?" She said she wasn't sure as none said 'Bologna' and I explained it was likely a wayward point, not the destination, but that I knew it left at 10:03am. We both studied the board again but didn't see any at that time. Figuring I was looking at the arrivals as I've done many times before I verified that it was the departure board, and indeed there was no 10:03am.

"It is this station, right?" she confirmed and I whipped out the tickets. Shit, shit, shit.

Checking the time it was 9:40am - "We have to get a taxi!" - and we bumped into each other as we broke toward the taxi stand as if it were the Amazing Race.

"Do we even have any money?" Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. I'd spent down to my last couple Euro coins on the bike rental and hadn't replenished. I started scrambling around looking for an ATM, then ran back to Kate to give her the ticket so she could ask a train attendant what we could do, then shouted over my shoulder for her not to go far as I rushed off to find a bankomat.

Eventually I found it and cursed its double automatic door that, like an air lock, slowly allows you in, waits to close, then slowly opens the inner door. Like a sailor on this morning I swore again under my breath at the blank screen of the first terminal and the massive conglomerate of people around the other two. Checking my watch with a sinking feeling I explained to the young guy in front of me that my train was about to leave, hoping to jump the queue.

"Mine too. I just boarded the bus, the driver had no change to sell me a ticket and waved me on. Sure enough at the next stop the ticket checkers boarded and now they're standing outside with my passport."

"OK, you first," I gestured graciously.

With a mittful of bills I impatiently depressurized through the bank's double doors and ran back to Katherine.

She reported that the bus would take half an hour and indicated a 40-person strong lineup for the taxi. Even if we hailed one immediately the 13 minutes remaining until departure would hardly be enough to get there.

"So what do we do now?" I distinctly remember asking, feeling defeated. We went toward the info desk where there looked like there was a minimum 13 minute lineup so we accosted a uniformed train employee in the hall asking if there was anything to do. He made a call to see if perhaps our train was delayed but sadly informed us "Your train is on time. Funny with this strike going on and nearly everything else delayed or cancelled." Huh? He advised us to join the info line and see if there was anything to do.

It moved surprisingly quickly but was 10:03 when we reached the Italian speaking old man. As soon as I pushed the ticket toward him he looked at it, saw our destination and pointed at a departure on his screen. He didn't get it. I pointed at the different departure station on our ticket and he pointed at the same departure train on his screen, seeming quite apologetic due to the strike. I tried pointing at the train number - same result.

Katherine and I never would have boarded a train without a ticket ordinarily but emboldened with his direction, albeit still supremely hesitant we headed toward that platform. Everyone has heard stories of cranky train conductors extorting money from woeful foreigners or tossing them out at deserted stations yet we were about to try and do this anyhow.

En route we checked for other departures for which we could legitimately buy a ticket (four times the cost, plus the money we'd be burning on the unused ticket) and this departure came up as sold out. Yet we managed to find a pair of seats before it pulled out of the station, only for the rightful owner to show up a minute later. So there we were standing with our properly validated ticket for a rickety old (but scenic) train that had left from an entirely different station while we had ascertained that this was a fancy high speed train whizzing through Italian tunnels. The announcement came on and said the first stop would actually be our stop, meaning we had 37 minutes.

Thirty seven excruciating minutes of waiting for the sickle to fall, of glancing each way for the ticket checker, of holding our breath when anyone looking even remotely authoritative (like wearing a suit) walked down the aisle. With less than five minutes till arrival Katherine thought she might be sick from stress, or maybe just wanted to leave me to do the explaining, and ducked into the bathroom. Nervously I urged the train into the station as I gathered our bags. Just before it came to a stop Kate emerged, grabbed her sack and not until we were both safely on the platform of our destination did either of us breath a sigh of relief.

"As always everything works out in the end," I told her with mock bravado and she just glared at me for having put her through that.

Profile: Soviet on a Soviet Train

Caution, the post you are about to read contains language intended for a mature audience. Wake only the mature children to let them know what Stefan has spied.

Meet Viktor

- From Odessa but does not identify as Ukrainian
- Speaks Russian, English and Italian (macaroni..spaghetti..)
- A submarine captain in the Soviet Union
- Fought in the Angora war 1982 (??) (unverified)
- Has visited Canada on cargo ships from the Pacific and Atlantic (Vancouver, Toronto, Mon'real)
- Only needs 2 hours sleep; snores throughout
- Smoker
- A man, 100%. "No, a fucking man, one hundred percent!"
- Shares, but only with Canadian young man, not Russian boy. Masdarovia!

Transit ion (Delhi, Agra, Delhi, Amritsar, Delhi, Bangkok, Pattaya)

With the arrival of Larissa came the onslaught of activities for there was so much of India left to see and so little time to show it to her (hence the lack of updates, which I will now make amends for). As mentioned previously, Delhi - India's capital - proved to be a trying place with far-flung sites distanced by unceasing traffic. Running away from this we took in the grand Taj Mahal in Agra, also as documented. From there we had to pass through Delhi once more on our way to Amritsar, home of the Sikh Golden Palace.

Well this Delhi fly-through did not go quite as planned. First from Agra we needed to catch a train at 757am so after the previous day's late-night scramble to find a working ATM (who knew it could be so difficult? and in every city!) we had cash to pay the hotel bill and exit in search of a tuk tuk (3-wheeled auto rickshaw). After negotiating with the driver we agreed on a price ($1 Canadian for a few kms) but were appalled after squeezing in with our bags to witness the eventual push start of the vehicle and hear the horrible noises coming from it. Figuring it was too much hassle to disengage we went with it, as did the driver's friend who came along, which seemed odd but was explained shortly thereafter. You see as we puttered down the road, with other rickshaws and even cycle-rickshaws overtaking us we came to a tricky spot where a man pulling a large wagon was on our left and a giant tour bus was sliding by us on our right. Our driver yelled and the friend hopped out and tried to slow our yellow and green death trap with his feet since the brakes apparently weren't working. Unsuccessful in his attempt we crashed into the side of the wagon just as the tail end of the bus, I kid you not, brushed against my leg and clipped the front end of our rickshaw. The most amazing (in a bad way) thing about this experience was that none of the three vehicles even paused and we continued to the train station, with me and Larissa huddled in the back shaking our heads and wondering what the heck we'd gotten into.

Anyway the trip on the train back to Delhi was without incident and we hired a taxi to tour us around. The first stop was a temple shaped like a lotus designed by an Indian-Canadian architect. However this turned out to be closed so we asked for another site in its place and were taking to a 9 stage sound and light diorama that basically decreed in unminced words the Hindu gospel. Brainwashing in the form of strobe lights, thunderous sound systems, three screen video rooms, action figures and black lights. The railway museum and doll museum (6500 dolls in one hour!) were much more tame.

Paying the driver off we were dropped near the train station with four hours (or so we thought) to kill. We wandered through the market with the goals of internet (to verify that we had a spot on the train, since we'd been waitlisted) and dinner. The first goal became exceedingly difficult as nobody around in the hubbub of market and traffic was friendly, helpful, spoke-english or any of the above. We were coerced into small dark alleys with the promise of a computer only to find pushy sari-sellers, and pointed in every direction, none of which produced what we wanted. Every second person was trying to drive us somewhere and not a single one of them understood "internet". Unwanted and uncalled for attention was being bestowed upon Larissa as a darkness fell around us and despite the busy atmosphere (or perhaps because of it) men became more aggressive and we felt more uncomfortable. Eventually we just tried to escape the throngs of people by giving up on the internet and going to the train station, which wasn't much better. Here we were able to confirm we had sleepers on the train, however without internet printing facilities we were bound to pay a fine for each ticket that we hadn't printed. Annoyed by this but without any means of procuring a printed ticket (the train attendants refused, or perhaps were unable) we turned to our next task. Food was back in the crush of people and serenity was no where to be found. I bought the restaurant out as we hadn't eaten much all day, but the din in the place was still keeping us from peace.

Fed we went to the station an hour early. Took a seat at what we believed to be our platform and waited. And waited further without any indication that the train was coming. Nervous that we were in the wrong spot I wished to check but didn't want to leave Larissa unattended or miss the train. The display boards were out of order and although the lady over the sound system talked ceaselessly (mostly in Hindi) she did not mention our train once. Finally it was an hour after the train's expected departure and a saintly young man approached and translated the last audio announcement saying that our platform had been changed but that the train was coming soon. He even took us to our compartment as the train was mislabelled and we weren't going to get on without his help. Once finally boarded, the train left over an hour late (2 hours of our waiting at the station, 5 hours in the Hell of Old Delhi) and our only task was to get some rest on the journey by ignoring the bed bugs crawling on the walls.

****
Amritsar was a heavenly sanctuary in comparison. A free shuttle bus took us promptly to the magnificent golden temple where we checked into a relatively nice room with accomodating clerks. Lunch was great and the sights were all nearby. Somehow we had lucked out and arrived on a giant Sikh festival celebrating the original guru's birthday, so after an interesting display of patriotism at the India/Pakistan border closing ceremony (a story for another post!) we witnessed a fantastic (and free) firework display above the golden temple (rumoured to be covered in 750kg of pure gold!)

The rest of the stay in Amritsar was equally relaxing as we visited some parks and took in a Bollywood film (London Dreams) which was quite entertaining despite it being (mostly) in Hindi. Finally we began to depart India but it would be a long journey. Opting for a cycle rickshaw instead of the full free bus we were dropped at the station. The train was there early and we boarded and were given complimentary water, snacks and a full Indian thali (dinner). Smiling at eac other we wondered why we hadn't gotten this treatment before our final train journey in India (my lucky number 13th I calculated). The six hour trip was painfree besides the hyperactive child a couple of seats over. In Delhi the plan was to buy a prepaid taxi from the train station to the airport to avoid the city we'd come to hate altogether. However we found that taxis were no longer available prepaid leaving us stuck with a horribly long and loud prepaid rickshaw ride to the airport, or the task of bargaining for a taxi. We opted for the second option but should have taken the first as the taxi we were led to made more noise than any rickshaw we'd been in (even the brake-less one) and the driver appeared to have a deathwish. Nonetheless we made it to the airport in one piece, 4 hours early for our flight.

Check-in was fine then we tried to gulp back 2 litres of water before security (only to realize we'd have to pee it out the entire flight). On the inside we had 400 rupees ($10) to get rid of as it is illegal, and unworthwhile, to take rupees out of the country. Disappointed were we when we found out the duty free wouldn't accept rupees from non-Indians so we blew it on books. About 2am at this point we both got a bit grumpy and tried to read through bleary eyes while waiting for the plane. Naturally our gate was changed at the last moment too ("this is India" being the go-to explanation we'd come to expect) and at 330am they rushed us on for our 4am departure. The trip was 3h33m and was the only sleep we got, between take off, meal and landing.

*************

Thailand saw a driver holding a sign "Mr. Stefan" which was a welcome sight just before he took us out into the humid heat. Same approximate temperature as India the humidity was noticeable and made things dramatically worse for us. The nearly 2 hour drive thankfully was air conditioned and we were overjoyed to do up our buckles and see that people actually drive in lanes and obey traffic signals!

My brother-in-law's father and his wife welcomed us with great smiles to their lavish private community home a couple of klicks from the Pattaya beach. We did our best to be social for an hour over the best mango and pineapple I've ever tasted before crashing hard for two hours of sleep due to exhaustion in our most comfortable room, complete with en suite washroom! The change from yesterday to today has been drastic, and the peacefulness here is most welcome. A bit of tennis and a nice beachside pizza rounded out our day today and we look forward to this holiday from our holiday while recuperating here for the next four days.