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GCIRC Day 5 – Udhampur: computing, party crashing, getting thrown off a train, etc
Writing this on the Uttar Sampark Kranti. UHP – New Delhi. Yeah, that’s a mouthful.
Every day is an event, I just never know which act is up next.
The Morning After (being horribly ill)
I woke up in Jammu Tawi, operating at about 80% power after the previous day’s gastro-flu powered illness. The fever had broken the day before, and while it was amazing to get up feeling like I could take on the day properly, I was confronted with another problem:
No phone signal. No data, no calls out or in, nothing.
The immediate problem was that I was hoping to give Christine a wake up call which would not be happening. The bigger issue was the lack of ability to update my progress, which if you have been paying attention to up to this point, I have been doing quite a bit.
“The hotel we booked has wifi, I have been assured.” Mark tells us. I barely believe it can be true at this point, half of what people tell us here has been wrong, the other half is like a coin flip to see which parts are true and which are not.
Unbelievably, wi-fi was actually available to us, and those of us inclined to use it went to town.
The Lull
And other than my first significant meal in the last 54 hours or so, and watching Troy get a shave,
I really just thought today would be a quiet day of catching up on email in a chilly but charming, if rough around the edges, town of Udhanpur – the northernmost stop in our journey.
Things got moderately more interesting when we were invited to an engagement party happening upstairs.
More specifically, Lauren, the tall blonde of the group (other than Jason, who I suppose is also the tall blonde of the group), was invited, and the rest of us got roped in by some very persuasive, persistent children. They fed us, talked to us about their cousin’s engagement, and everyone there seemed very welcoming and happy to have us there. One young woman in particular made a point to ask for contact numbers from all the women of the group. What she expects to do with those numbers, I will likely never know, as I have boy parts and was not invited into that club.
The Storm
We made it onto this train for a 7PM departure and set off on our 12 hour overnight train to Delhi. Everyone was tucked in nice and neat. I had even started writing this post, when two hours in, four Indian men wandered into our berth.
They had tickets for our seats.
We tried explaining our position, that the seats were posted outside the carriage door, that our own ticket would not have our berth numbers as they were booked months in advance. My blood pressure was cranked as I just waited for Mark, or better yet, a conductor, to come work it out. Mark was nowhere to be found, the berth was full with people unwilling to move.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the conductor finally showed. He looked at my ticket, saw the clearly marked UDHAMPUR to NEW DELHI, looked back at the seats.
“These are only to Jammu. These men are here.”
Abject terror. Where is somebody who knows something? After several rounds of back and forth with the conductor that all end similarly, Steven, the guy I trust most on this trip to know what is going on when we are on the trains, walks in.
“He’s right. I’ve checked them all at the door and they only have us booked to Jammu. We’ve got to get off”
And so, in utter disbelief, with no earthly idea of what was going to happen next. We got our belongings and got off the train.
This is where the documentarian in me needed to kick in, get video of this as it happened, photos, something. But no. I was in a little bit of shock, with no one in particular to be mad at. Wait, this isn’t everyone in the group. Where are the others?
The train started to roll away while we started to process what was going on and talk about what it might take to grab a night bus to New Delhi
An incredibly loud hissing noise erupted from the front of the train, which stopped dead. John, one of Mark’s school friends who quite often looks like he’d rather be anywhere other than wherever he happens to be, pops out of the cabin door.
“Mark says get on the train. Come on.”
Confused, we were not quick to reply. Someone mentions the conductor, that there’s no space.
“Fuck the conductor. Get back on the train.” he barks back, but not just at us, as it seems like a rebuke of all of India, or at least everyone on that platform who was making his night a mess.
We got on the train. And we stood. Four or five of us in between the carriages, nearly killing any through-traffic. We didn’t know where the girls in the group went, we didn’t know if we would be standing there for the next twelve hours or if we might be arrested at the next station, we didn’t know anything.
A well dressed Indian gentleman stepped through the door, asked what the problem was. When we explained and showed him my ticket, he looked it over closely, determined;
“This is good, this is no problem. Come.”
Uh, okay, you look official, sort of, you speak the language and you are on my side? Let’s do this! Which immediately made me worry that the losers here would be the other gentlemen who took our seats before. It was not their fault this happened, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for a perfect resolution. My new Indian friend and I walked into the storm of people in our group who had clearly been at this for awhile with the conductor. He passed my ticket forward and said something briefly. I waited.
“They found you. You’re in 15.”
Wait, what? That’s it then? There’s room? Well then. I shook this man’s hand, my new Indian BFF, who held the handshake well past what most westerners would consider a comfortable length of time, but by god, I HAD A BED. I shook the hell out of that man’s hand, and would still be shaking it now if he hadn’t let go.
It seems what they thought was a full carriage of passengers was just a lot of double booking. We each got our new beds and went over the events again and again, unable to fully calm down.
The Urban Legend
“John’s the one who pulled the emergency break.”
“Was that what that huge hissing noise was?”
“Yeah I’m pretty sure he pulled it and then came out to yell at us to get back on the train.”
“Holy. Shit.”
I even asked his friend, Andrew to confirm this for me. “Yeah, yeah it was him.”
So this story has a hero. It makes perfect sense. John has had enough, he yanks the train to a halt and orders everyone back on the train like a god damn General. Perfect! Amazing! Still, I needed to confirm it with the man himself.
“Is that what people are saying?” He laughed.
That was not necessarily a denial.
“Are you saying no because you don’t want to be fined 1000 rupees or go to prison for a year?”
Laughter again. “No. I am not the guy.”
Crap.
So we have a mystery person to thank for stopping our train long enough for us to board. Not exactly the ending I was pulling for here. Still, we all got a laugh at the end of the night.
…once the adrenaline started to wear off.
John: Not quite the hero my story wanted him to be.
GCIRC Day 4 pt 2 – Delhi Belly: Just another statistic, man.
Before we left on this trip, Troy and I were having a conversation that I am sure, if I could remember the subject now, would probably be embarrassing. The one notable exchange came when Troy busted out the line:
“Just another statistic, man. Just another statistic.”
Then it occurred to me:
“I’m still a statistic, dude. I didn’t get hit by a bus today. I haven’t done heroin. I’m part of the good statistic!”
Anyway, we all laughed. Maybe you had to be there.
I was part of the crappy statistic two nights ago, when I came down with a moderate case of Delhi belly. Without getting overly graphic, I had a nightmare session in the squat toilet, and two hours later I almost didn’t make it back to the bathroom in time to vomit. I’ve been dragging my butt around since then.
Schlepping my butt to the Wagah border for the flag crossing ceremony
It’s a little embarrassing to be the first in the group to get sick. I take great pride in my strong immune system and even stronger stomach. The fact that no one else got sick means I did something wrong somewhere. It likely was not something I ate, as others around me were eating the same things.
Troy snaps me putting on a reasonably brave face.
Thankfully, Troy shared his immodium with me, and Lauren and Todd from globetroopers.com even gave me some cipro. They are my new BFFs 4 eva.
The lesson here, kids, is to come prepared better than I was. I was cocky. I was positive I wouldn’t need any sort of drugs to help me in a pinch, and as a result, I was at the mercy of my co-riders willingness to dip into their own resources to help me.
Short version: when riding 12,000 kilometers around India, bring cipro. You might end up like me. Just another statistic, man.
This was the best photo I got from the ceremony, sadly. I gave up on the Golden Temple that night and took a nap instead.
GCIRC Day 4 – The one where Drew craps his brains out
Drew is, um, unavailable for today’s post, so he’s left it to his wife (Christine) to finish his update for him. I’m sure he would be more delicate with the language, but here’s the limited information I have from Drew:
From Facebook: “What has two thumbs and feels violently ill? *This gCOUGHuuuuyyy* More as this develops.”
To me in email: “Todd gave me cipro, Troy gave me immodium. The cipro has made me tired but the stomach feels better. Mad pooping @midnight, vomited @2am. Pooped once since. We’re about to reach our stop, I’m toughing this out.”
Next email:”We’re in Amristar, for a Pakistani/Indian friendly rivalry ceremony. Big terror threat. I considered skipping it, but I think that might be a huge mistake. It’s supposed to be bananas, tourists get the best seats for it I guess.”
More email: “I’m at dinner with some people, I assumed I would be able to get a banana here, but no luck, so I am going to take off. I just need some potassium and rest:p”
When I asked him, “What about the update” he wrote, “What if you took a screen shot of my last tweet and used that as a preview for tomorrows’ update?”
Okay, Captain!
Drew is very sick, so let’s give him a day off! I tried my best, but I’m sure Drew will be back to his hilarious self tomorrow. I hope! (Thank goodness for Cipro!)
GCIRC Day 3 – Riding the rails
Writing this on the Ahmedabad Jammu Express, and lots of other places. This writing presages me getting super sick that following night.
Is it possible to be both charmed and bored? That’s where I find myself on this day. I mistakenly thought that our first train, a 19 hour ride up to Dwarka, was our longest trip in the circut. I was wrong though, there are at least two longer rides, and today I was on one of them – a 24 hour slog from Ahmedabad Jn. to Makhu.
Much napping is done on a ride this long, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of being too stationary. The cure for feeling stuffed like a sardine in a can? Get some fresh air.
Time slows a bit when you’re on a long train ride, but there’s something earnest about this mode of transportation, the lifeline of India to millions upon millions of it’s people.
I am enjoying this immensely. Even the dull bits.
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5 rupee chai
GCIRC Day 2 – Dwarka: zero to party in 30 minutes
I expected this day was meant to be a train day, defined by the group getting it’s bearings during a 19 hour train ride. It was this, but it turned into much more once we left the confines of our AC2 sleeper
The day felt a bit like summer camp, some people in the group knew each other well, most of us were very newly acquainted, there was light talk amongst us, but I got the sense we were all holding back, giving ourselves time to get acclimated to this new environment.
We arrived late to Dwarka by about an hour, and as I walked out of the station I saw a multitude of rickshaws. Sadly, I turned to the right and discovered a large tourist bus also waiting for us.
The function of the bus was to ferry us three hours away to a different train station that would whisk us off to Ahmedabad, but not before spending a few hours in Dwarka
I am completely smitten with Dwarka. This is what I expect, what I secretly sort of hoped India would be throughout. There were insane dancing-in-the-street moments punctuating quieter walks through alleys, always attracting attention from friendly and curious locals. There are elements that remind me of Grenada, Nicaragua, even though those places are really almost nothing alike. Something about seeing a beautiful place showing it’s decay while also being proudly itself seems to be the only thread of similarity that I can find, but I’ll take it.
I would love to come back here someday. Dwarka makes me even more excited for the seeing the rest of India.
Lifestream
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Shared Taken with instagram.
