We went to the rail station and asked to get tickets to the Delhi - Dharamsala night express. It is a pleasant five to seven hours train ride. Even though it is called express I asked the tickets seller specifically if we are getting of in the final (and assumed by me as unique) stop of the train. The indian guy moved his head around the axis that doesn't mean yes nor no, just moving his head; I'm 100% sure he said Yes in addition to this informationless head movement.
The train was supposed to depart at 20:40. So we arrived to the station at ...
...
well ...
at, mmmm, emmm, 19:00! We, me, mainly, didn't want to miss this train and stay in Delhi.
On 20:00 the tourists office of the railway station is closed, so we were forced to wait for the train in the incredibly crouded train platform with, I believe, enough Indians to populate TLV and Jerusalem! I'm exagerating, but easily they could populate all Afula, that's for sure.
We went to a dark, isolated (as much as isolation has any sense in this place) corner and waited.
The train arrived. All Afula's population needs a long train, so it was. It was like one kilometer long!
We found our beds. It was a three tier, air conditioned wagon. We took both top beds in the same room. We put all the bags in one bed together with me and Noa and Yubalino were on the second bed:
 |
| From Mc Leod Ganj |
 |
| From Mc Leod Ganj |
It was very nice!
We had an Indian princess as a Neighboor. I believe so. She was dressed and adorned like a princess. The prince was in regular jeans and T-shirt. Under Noa and Shubalion, a bussinessman from Kalkuta was in his way north to do some bussiness. Very nice guy!
The train left exactly at around, more or less 22:00... Indian trains work, I guess, on Israeli time zone ...
We had an Indian princess as a Neighbor. I believe so. She was dressed and adorned like a princess. The prince was in regular jeans and T-shirt. Under Noa and Shubalino, a businessman from Calcutta was in his way north to do some business. Very nice guy!
The train left exactly at around, more or less 22:00... Indian trains work, I guess, on Israeli time zone ...
Shortly after departure a guy started bringing towels, blankets, sheets, pillows, etc. In the end he started to bring all kind of food. Very tasty food! In the middle of the food bombardment shubalino came up with one of the best questions I ever heard:
This guy is our friend, right? I laughed for a while
After eating and eating some more, our friend asked for TIP and stopped coming and bringing stuff.
We saw all the train is turning off the lights. I asked the prince if he wants me to shut off our light too. He replied with the typical Indian answerless head movement, so I turned the light off. Since shubalino is affraid of the dark, I took a head-light off my backpack and turned on. Shubalino felt asleep quiet immediately.
Then I started reading about Dharamsala and I found out there is a quiet place nearby named McLeodganj. I immediately understood this is our destination, so I tried to memorize this terrible name.
Since we were almost robed twice, few hours before departure, my love and I decided we won't sleep all the journey. So I red everything in our India's handbook about Dharamsala and Mcleodganj especially. I red it twice and once more, and the train stopped like five or six times. My love looked at me, why is the express train stopping? she asked. With a total confidence They have only one rail in some segments I replied... What the hell do I understand about trains in in general and about Indian trains in particular!??!!??!??!!!
After a long trip, the train stopped and everybody started getting off. So we did. Shubalion was awaked suddenly, so he started crying and fighting. I lost my temper, but thanks to my love, there were no casualties.
When I got to the train door, while my foot was on the air on its way down to touch earth, at that specific moment, I understood we are fucked up by a big dicked donkey! I saw some soldiers behind sand bags holding 0.5 machine guns. This can't be good news. Especially when you are traveling north.
A feeling of emptiness, fear, exhaustion and panic were switch with infinite rage as I understood we are in Kashmir. I wanted to shoot the tickets seller between his eyes with the machine gun of this guy looking at me, three meters away.
Nobody spoke English, all our neighbors from the train vanished. My love tried to calm us both by telling me it is worse if they feel our weakness. She was as right as I was almost out of control.
After finding an English speaker we understood we are at the last, so called, express train. More than 100 Km away from our original destination. This friendly guy told us we should buy tickets to the train back south and get off at Penthakot. Another terrible word I must store in a head full of rage and after being awake all the night. The train is leaving at 9:00 AM, two hours of waiting in the station and the journey would last another two or three hours.
9:00 AM my ass!!! The train didn't even arrive the platform at 9:00 AM
The platform was full of sun burnt men, washing their teeth. What and hygienic sight, especially when you are in a country where people shit in the very place they understood the kaka is ready for delivery. I checked my teeth like ten times, just because of them.
Don't remember what time it was. A train entered the platform. I tried to understand where is the north, calculating this is winter, morning, north, his brushing his teeth, he looks at us all the time, why he keeps his finger on the trigger with the clip inside, ...., ah!!!!!!! My brain cannot even calculate how old am I. I'm tired, scared, tired and exhausted.
Luckily, another incredibly friendly lady with an understandable English told us to get on this train. So we did.
I believe we sat in this train for another whole hour before it started moving. My love even went to pee on the train toilet. If it doesn't mean anything to the reader, I believe that the train toilet is comparable with the worst stinky, ugly, wet, grouse toilet an ex-prisoner in the Vietnam war can imagine.
The train finally started moving and kept doing so (since it started a few times before). We were explained that we should get off the train seven stops after departure. Well, at the seventh stop there was no power on earth that would take us out of this train. It looked like the train station of a far west town that the sheriff was killed a long time ago and his body's smell is still in the air. The blood pressure started raising again to the 500mm line. Actually it was us, since the people in the train were incredibly nice, gentle and with faces full of peace. It was just us with stress in the whole train.
A friendly guy told us the next station is Phantakot. And exactly as he said, six stops afterwards we got off the train at Pantakot.
Phantakot is a 300m, doble direction road (in both sides of the road they dive in both directions!!) with shops, taxis, buses and a railway station.
We went to the right, we were wrong. We got back and finally found the central bus station, 100m from the railway station.
We found a unique bus that gets to Dharamsala. This bus has three doors. One by the driver and two on the rear part. None of them mechanical, of course. One of the rear doors is constantly open, since you can enter the bus from behind or from the front. We sat on the last seat, since we had four huge back packs and no other place to put them but by us. We assumed the rear door is closed as the journey begins...
Then my love and Shubalino moved to another seat, a bit away from the constantly open rear door.
Then we discovered the third door. An emergency door. In india they didn't understand the meaning of Emergency Door. Here in India is a door that when everything is just fine, it suddenly opens by itself and generates an emergency!! That's the way this new discovered door looks like.
The journey to Dharamsala lasted a three and a half hours eternity. The road climbs to the Himalayas, on a road that is full of Indian drivers and our bus driver passes trucks just before a turn without having any place to go in case another Indian driver comes in the opposite direction.
We got to Dharamsala!! Well, don't be so happy. We must get to mclejanag or something like this, Panthakot was stored in the place where Mcleodganj was stored before. So I couldn't remember where we were heading to.
We found a Jeep that goes to McLeod Ganj. Well, I finally understood how the Arab workers feel when they seat 20 guys in a small tender. I believe that at several parts of the journey we were 15 passengers in a Jeep climbing the Himalayas without touching the brakes and with more cars in this snaky road than in Ayalon at 8:00 AM on Sunday.
Finally, after four false alarms, we got to McLeod Ganj!!!! Well, we are happy to soon, again... The Tibetans are holding a very important meeting and every single bed in this town has a Tibetan or two sleeping on it.
My love was exhausted and I was trying to hold her for just 20 more gest houses. Probably at the twenty first there will be a vacant room.
Finally we found a room and went to sleep, I don't even remember if we had a shower before going to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment