Sometimes it really is the journey, not the destination. We started off on our two week vacation prepared for anything. First-Aid kit, locks (lots of them), pillows, and sunscreen. We didn't realize that even the train ride would be so exciting. We took 3 tier AC. Which means that there are berths, and each berth has 6 people with foldable beds. In each car there are 5 berths. It's air conditioned, there are pillows, blankets and sheets. They even have outlets to charge your cell phone. When we first got on, I was a bit weary because the last time we had been on a train was our trip to Varanasi when our bag was stolen. Needless to say, every bag had two locks on it. After locking down everything, I walked down the aisle and noticed that somebody was charging their iPhone, and had just left there. There was nobody else in the car. Obviously, the person trusted 3 tier AC people enough to leave their iPhone sitting there, with no protection at all. As I was marveling at this sense of trust in India, an attendant came up to me and handed me freshly packaged sheets and a pillow. I must have look bewildered, because he asked me "Is everything ok?". I instantly replied yes, everything is okay, and thought that I was going to like traveling in 3 tier AC Class a lot better than Sleeper Class. The train ride was supposed to be 30 hours long, so we all immediately got settled and prepared for the long journey. Later breakfast was brought around. Then we all got up and read, talked, played backgammon, or whatever else we could find to do. Then the AC stops working. In America, we would just expect to get some money back. But in India they know better. On the ticket it says "Not refundable under any circumstances even if lights, fans, AC, anything doesn't work". So it was pretty frustrating laying there in the heat, but at least I had a pillow! I walk past the AC unit, which a man is working on, and notice a rather startling picture of a person being electrocuted while touching the unit and it says some absurd number like 23948200 million volts are running through this system, don't touch. I decide to move on. They then run a cable from our car to the next, and we are given power and blessed AC. I got up to stretch me legs and walked up and down the aisle. As I stood looking out the door, some other men started friendly conversation with me. I told them I was a student at Delhi University (that always impresses people somehow), and I practiced some of my broken Hindi (which they love). Then we stopped at a train station and a lot of people got off to buy snacks and walk around. I got off and found and icecream seller and bought an ice cream then got back on the train. Then Andrew complained that I didn't get him one. I told him I'd get him one for a service charge of 40 Rs, so I got back off the train to get the ice cream. As I was getting it, the train started to move. At first I wasn't afraid, a lot of people get back on the train when it's moving. But then it started going faster and faster and faster. Then I noticed the AC car had already past by me. So I ran after it and as I run for the door to my car, I hear my friend from earlier yell "ye bundt hai" (that door is closed) as I'm furiously running and translating in my head I realize what he is telling me, and then run for the door he is standing in and grab the bar next to the door. Then I make the leap... and miss. My toe makes it onto the train, but my flip-flop bends beneath my toe and prevents the rest of my foot from making it on. Hanging on for dear life, my friend grabs my hand deftly and pulls me on in one swift stroke. Then he smiles and laughs at me. He didn't ask for money, he didn't try to grope me. He just laughed. I said thank you and went to give Andrew his ice cream. The sun started to set and the sky turned beautiful colors so Eric, Will, and I decided to go stick our heads out the door at take pictures of each other. It was all pretty amusing. Will was standing in the aisle between the two cars, and Eric and I were next to the door. Will was standing in the way of the door to the bathroom (really just a hole that goes to the tracks) and an older lady wanted to get by. So I tug on Will's shirt to get him to move, then I notice the old lady freezes. I notice the light above me flicker in and out. Then I hear a loud hissing noise. I move Will out of the aisle and see that the cord running between the two AC units is sparking. About four feet high sparks and flames and jumping out at us and getting bigger, and louder, and smoke is filling the aisle. Needless to say I run. I yell at Will and Eric that the train is on fire, and run. With the old lady in front of me, she could move quickly, and images of the stick figure man being electrocuted from the 403820230 million volts, I run into my car yelling the train is on fire and tell everybody to grab their stuff, because everything is going up in flames. It must have be a sight to the rest of the passengers to see this white girl running down the aisle shouting the train is on fire and looking frantic. All of a sudden the train stopped and attendants ran towards the AC unit. Smoke went everywhere. Sparks still sparked. And everybody in 3 tier AC (except for me of course) was completely calm. Then it was "under control", the attendants started trickling out, and the train started to move within 30 min. I was quite amazed. I went down the aisle and sat with my new friends. They were all laughing at me at how scared I looked when I ran down the aisle. I told them it was scary to see the flames. The one man said, "Yes, at least you alerted us, then I pulled the emergency stop so that the attendants could come and fix it. I had to do everything to save my friends." Then everybody was somber and one man said, "What if that would have happened in the night while we were sleeping?" Then one man said "Then God would have had to been looking over us." And everybody was quiet. Indian men are quite weird. Then the wanted to talk about politics. They asked where I was from-California, Is that a city?-No it's a state, Oh? The United States has states like India does?- Um... yes. They wanted to talk about Bush, then Obama vs. McCain. For some reason one of them thought that McCain was already president... Then one of their friends and joined in, and found out that I spoke some Hindi. He didn't know much English, so just spoke to me in Hindi and assumed that I would understand (which most of the time I just nodded). He said something and all I could figure out was Hindi, like, to make. I asked his friend to translate and he said "Learning Hindi for you is like making rice, practice will perfect." Again, Indian men and their funny sayings. We slept through the night with no fires or thefts. Woke up had some breakfast and were eager to get off the train. We should have gotten off around 11 am. At 10 am I went to ask my friends how much longer they thought it would be. They made funny grunting noises and said "ooooo The train ran slow last night, we will late, about 7 hours late. We won't get to Silliguri until about 7 pm tonight." I went back and told everybody the bad news. But by this point, the difference didn't seem that bad, once you've been sitting on a train for that long a couple hours here or there doesn't matter. So we played more backgammon, read more, and talked more. We finally got to Silliguri and one of the Indian men helped us hire a taxi to get to a hotel. We weren't that impressed with the town. In one word: Reno. It was just like Reno, well I mean, minus strip clubs (this is India), but bars filled with smoke and women with too much makeup. Lots and lots of men on the streets. So we checked into the hotel, ate dinner at a bar/restaurant that was also playing Deuce Bigalo on a flat screen. We went to sleep and were excited to take the Toy Train to Darjeeling tomorrow morning.
Sometimes it really is the journey, not the destination. We started off on our two week vacation prepared for anything. First-Aid kit, locks (lots of them), pillows, and sunscreen. We didn't realize that even the train ride would be so exciting. We took 3 tier AC. Which means that there are berths, and each berth has 6 people with foldable beds. In each car there are 5 berths. It's air conditioned, there are pillows, blankets and sheets. They even have outlets to charge your cell phone. When we first got on, I was a bit weary because the last time we had been on a train was our trip to Varanasi when our bag was stolen. Needless to say, every bag had two locks on it. After locking down everything, I walked down the aisle and noticed that somebody was charging their iPhone, and had just left there. There was nobody else in the car. Obviously, the person trusted 3 tier AC people enough to leave their iPhone sitting there, with no protection at all. As I was marveling at this sense of trust in India, an attendant came up to me and handed me freshly packaged sheets and a pillow. I must have look bewildered, because he asked me "Is everything ok?". I instantly replied yes, everything is okay, and thought that I was going to like traveling in 3 tier AC Class a lot better than Sleeper Class. The train ride was supposed to be 30 hours long, so we all immediately got settled and prepared for the long journey. Later breakfast was brought around. Then we all got up and read, talked, played backgammon, or whatever else we could find to do. Then the AC stops working. In America, we would just expect to get some money back. But in India they know better. On the ticket it says "Not refundable under any circumstances even if lights, fans, AC, anything doesn't work". So it was pretty frustrating laying there in the heat, but at least I had a pillow! I walk past the AC unit, which a man is working on, and notice a rather startling picture of a person being electrocuted while touching the unit and it says some absurd number like 23948200 million volts are running through this system, don't touch. I decide to move on. They then run a cable from our car to the next, and we are given power and blessed AC. I got up to stretch me legs and walked up and down the aisle. As I stood looking out the door, some other men started friendly conversation with me. I told them I was a student at Delhi University (that always impresses people somehow), and I practiced some of my broken Hindi (which they love). Then we stopped at a train station and a lot of people got off to buy snacks and walk around. I got off and found and icecream seller and bought an ice cream then got back on the train. Then Andrew complained that I didn't get him one. I told him I'd get him one for a service charge of 40 Rs, so I got back off the train to get the ice cream. As I was getting it, the train started to move. At first I wasn't afraid, a lot of people get back on the train when it's moving. But then it started going faster and faster and faster. Then I noticed the AC car had already past by me. So I ran after it and as I run for the door to my car, I hear my friend from earlier yell "ye bundt hai" (that door is closed) as I'm furiously running and translating in my head I realize what he is telling me, and then run for the door he is standing in and grab the bar next to the door. Then I make the leap... and miss. My toe makes it onto the train, but my flip-flop bends beneath my toe and prevents the rest of my foot from making it on. Hanging on for dear life, my friend grabs my hand deftly and pulls me on in one swift stroke. Then he smiles and laughs at me. He didn't ask for money, he didn't try to grope me. He just laughed. I said thank you and went to give Andrew his ice cream. The sun started to set and the sky turned beautiful colors so Eric, Will, and I decided to go stick our heads out the door at take pictures of each other. It was all pretty amusing. Will was standing in the aisle between the two cars, and Eric and I were next to the door. Will was standing in the way of the door to the bathroom (really just a hole that goes to the tracks) and an older lady wanted to get by. So I tug on Will's shirt to get him to move, then I notice the old lady freezes. I notice the light above me flicker in and out. Then I hear a loud hissing noise. I move Will out of the aisle and see that the cord running between the two AC units is sparking. About four feet high sparks and flames and jumping out at us and getting bigger, and louder, and smoke is filling the aisle. Needless to say I run. I yell at Will and Eric that the train is on fire, and run. With the old lady in front of me, she could move quickly, and images of the stick figure man being electrocuted from the 403820230 million volts, I run into my car yelling the train is on fire and tell everybody to grab their stuff, because everything is going up in flames. It must have be a sight to the rest of the passengers to see this white girl running down the aisle shouting the train is on fire and looking frantic. All of a sudden the train stopped and attendants ran towards the AC unit. Smoke went everywhere. Sparks still sparked. And everybody in 3 tier AC (except for me of course) was completely calm. Then it was "under control", the attendants started trickling out, and the train started to move within 30 min. I was quite amazed. I went down the aisle and sat with my new friends. They were all laughing at me at how scared I looked when I ran down the aisle. I told them it was scary to see the flames. The one man said, "Yes, at least you alerted us, then I pulled the emergency stop so that the attendants could come and fix it. I had to do everything to save my friends." Then everybody was somber and one man said, "What if that would have happened in the night while we were sleeping?" Then one man said "Then God would have had to been looking over us." And everybody was quiet. Indian men are quite weird. Then the wanted to talk about politics. They asked where I was from-California, Is that a city?-No it's a state, Oh? The United States has states like India does?- Um... yes. They wanted to talk about Bush, then Obama vs. McCain. For some reason one of them thought that McCain was already president... Then one of their friends and joined in, and found out that I spoke some Hindi. He didn't know much English, so just spoke to me in Hindi and assumed that I would understand (which most of the time I just nodded). He said something and all I could figure out was Hindi, like, to make. I asked his friend to translate and he said "Learning Hindi for you is like making rice, practice will perfect." Again, Indian men and their funny sayings. We slept through the night with no fires or thefts. Woke up had some breakfast and were eager to get off the train. We should have gotten off around 11 am. At 10 am I went to ask my friends how much longer they thought it would be. They made funny grunting noises and said "ooooo The train ran slow last night, we will late, about 7 hours late. We won't get to Silliguri until about 7 pm tonight." I went back and told everybody the bad news. But by this point, the difference didn't seem that bad, once you've been sitting on a train for that long a couple hours here or there doesn't matter. So we played more backgammon, read more, and talked more. We finally got to Silliguri and one of the Indian men helped us hire a taxi to get to a hotel. We weren't that impressed with the town. In one word: Reno. It was just like Reno, well I mean, minus strip clubs (this is India), but bars filled with smoke and women with too much makeup. Lots and lots of men on the streets. So we checked into the hotel, ate dinner at a bar/restaurant that was also playing Deuce Bigalo on a flat screen. We went to sleep and were excited to take the Toy Train to Darjeeling tomorrow morning.
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