Travel

This happened a while ago, 3 weeks or so ago. It is such a perfect example of India that I just have to tell the story. Traveling in India, no matter what distance, from my front door to the market, or from one city to another. Is always interesting. There are too many hazards to be even written about. Long distance travel especially, is when us "travelers" loose all control or grasp on our affairs (or percieved balance as it may be). This is when the resourceful, flexible and patient qualities of a person come in handy.
I was in Rishikesh, and it was time to had out to catch the Dalai Lama's teaching in Saranath. It was myself, Laura (Australia), Haley(Hawaii) and Elody(France). Laura, Haley and I had sleeper class tickets and Elody had 1st class. In sleeper class there are beds but not much else. Anyways, we caught a bus to the train station that was in another city about an hour away. We arrived, went into a restaurant and had some dinner. Our train was set to leave at 11:55, we mosied over to the station at about 11:30. We asked someone at a counter which platform our train would arrive at. Platform 8 I was told. Ok great, so we go out to the platforms and we see 1,2,3,4... no 8 ok. Well, what do we do, we sat down, waited and sang some Beatles. Ok, well it wasn't the smartest thing to do. I also think that if any one of us had been alone we wouldn't have made this mistake. But, we were in the station, and there was no platform 8. Sadly we waited until 11:55 when we heard the whistle blow. At that point one of us had the bright idea to check with the station master. Who told us that our train has left... But that we could catch the train that was supposed to arrive at 9 PM but was running late. A few hours he told us. Well it wasn't a couple of hours. The train didn't get into our station until 5 AM. The only tickets that were available were 3rd class. Which is infamous. Gandhi wrote about them as equating humans with cattle. Thankfully our compartments weren't that bad. Anyways, we spent a long and sleepless night on the hard floors avoiding a crazy man who wouldn't leave us alone. When our train arrived first came some compartments. We hopped into those as fast as we could, but it wasn't as fast as the Indians as soon as the train had slowed they were sprinting and leaping into the compartments. We managed to secure two seats and two luggage racks. We had to defend them for the rest of the trip. We joked that we traveled forward in time and then back again to get the train that we were on. Really we were just delerious, and the delirium remained because our train took 23 hours to reach Varanassi, the Express train that we were supposed to catch would have been 13 hours. Since I've been in India I've avoided bottled water like the plague. i had a water purifier but then it broke... so I was doing what shouldn't be done. I was drinking the water. It's a ig no-no, and everyone knows it. but if you know me, sometimes I have to figure stuff out for myself. I'd been fine drinking the water in the mountainous regions. But when the train pulled into Lucknow and i filled my water up it spelled doom for me. I got sick. And the meagre fare of station food i.e. Samosas, triangle shaped potato fritters, and puri, exited in the fastest way possible. without being too graphic, I was really, really sick. Some how in the delirium of not sleeping for two days I took it in stride. The rest of the ride was monotonous, bumps, long delays for no reason, and of course just as sleep was entering the conciousness some chai-wala would scream "chai" as loud as he could. It was fun, a good experience, that's how 90% of the Indian population travels... I've entered the club.
I just got over being sick again. But, I'm healthy and well. I'm doing yoga, taking hindi classes and volunteering. more soon to come! Love from India to everyone. This place has a strange way of teaching lessons, being sick is one of them.