Transportation Part Two

I have ridden on trains for the first time in my life here in India! It’s very exciting. The first ride was from Bangalore to Mysore and was 5 hours if I remember correctly. This was a pretty hectic experience at first, especially as everything we were told about the trains prior to arriving in the country was along the lines of “watch your stuff like a hawk, theft is really common” and “don’t wander around after dark”. And we were arriving at the train station pretty late in the day, which would put us in Mysore well after dark without a place to stay. Trouble. But it wasn’t near as bad as I expected.

We piled all our stuff on the floor of the front of the station for Spencer and me to stand guard over while Marc and Melissa bought tickets. We then found our way to the platform, again piled our stuff in a pile and sat on it while waiting for the train. The ceiling of the train was covered in fans; I think I counted 37 in our one car. The trip as I remember it was pretty uneventful; beggars and people hawking wares roamed up and down the aisles and we got some amazing peanuts. I saw some incredible orange lightning out the window at one point. Other than that not much stands out. Oh, except for the display of personal space (or lack thereof) Indian men have with each other. The train got really crowded, so these complete strangers were basically sitting in one another’s laps and rotating through so everyone got to sit for a bit. Definitely not something you would see done in the states; not even among good friends usually whereas it is common to see men here walking with their arms around each other or even hand in hand, just as a sign of being good friends.

My second train experience was a 40-hour train ride from Bangalore to Delhi. We were in a second class sleeper, which means that there were two benches for three people each facing each other, and then two seats facing each other on the other side of the aisle. The backs of the three-people benches folded up at night to form a bed so there were three beds on each side as the top bunk stayed down all day and the bottom bunk was where we sat during the day. Here are some fuzzy pictures from our first night on the train; I didn’t want to wake people with a flash so that’s why they’re so dark.

Here's Melissa "sleeping" for me on the top Bunk.

Spencer was on the middle bunk under Melissa...the yellow blob is another lady. I don't know if you can even see anything in this picture. It looked brighter before uploading it.

Along the side the bunks were two high. Melissa's feet are the top right, Spencer's are the socks below hers. He was about shoulder height on me, Melissa would have been over my head.

And while I’m uploading pictures, here is a picture of the samosa’s we bought from a vendor at the train station before taking off:

They’re really good; the stuff inside is like potatoes, herbs, spices, and some other stuff and it’s all fried and served with sauces that vary from vendor to vendor. They were really spicy, I almost couldn’t finish them but made myself because they were soooo good. (I’m thinking a foods entry would be good, yeah? I’ve been trying to remember to collect pictures for it)

Anyway, 40 hours on a train is a long time and makes one prone to bouts of insanity. But we met some really cool people, especially as there was a bit of turn-over at each stop. This couple ended up sitting across from us and at one point they shared some guavas they had brought. Now, this put us in a bit of a bind, since we’re supposed to stay away from fruits with thin skins or where you eat the skins, like apples, grapes, and guavas due to our American bodies being weak against the different microbodies in the water. But we didn’t want to be rude, and they were very persistent, so we accepted their generous offerings. At first, we tried to be sneaky and avoid eating the peel, but they noticed and explained the proper mode of eating so…none of that. They even put some spice, they called it Masala but I don’t know if that means spice or is a specific spice, in my hand to dip the guava in. The first time I got way too much and it was really potent. But it was tasty. We were all praying the whole time that we wouldn’t get sick, and Heavenly Father must have taken pity on us because none of us did. Yay!

I’ve seen more of Indian countryside now than I have of America’s from this train ride, and it is quite amazing. There is so much beauty both in landscape and in architect. But there is a lot of poverty and garbage too. One of the first things Marc told us when we arrived was that India is truly a place of juxtaposition; you have ancient buildings right next to modern ones, abject poverty right next to immense wealth, and this was definitely verified throughout our two days on the train.

It was nice to finally get off, especially since we arrived in Delhi two hours later than we expected. We felt dirty, smelly, exhausted, hungry, and a tad stir-crazy. But all in all, it was a worthwhile experience. And I would rather get on it again than on a bus…which will be discussed next so I hope you all tune in next time! Which will be a random, unspecified occurrence so…umm...stay tuned I guess.

ps. I have NO idea what happened to the html this time; but I don't care enough to fix it so...yep. That's what's up with that I guess.