Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 6942R/$139
We woke up today not feeling all that well. We took turns going to the bathroom and rushed to pack our stuff for our train ride to Aurangabad. Our bags have started getting heavy so we had decided to ship a parcel home in the mail before our train ride. That was first on our agenda for the day. Somehow as we were leaving for the nearest post office, we realized our train actually left at 2pm, not 3:30pm, like we had thought the whole morning. We had much less time than we thought and asked the hotel staff whether it would be possible for us to do both. They said it would be possible but that we would have to hurry. They gave us directions to the nearest post office and we hitched a ride with an auto-rickshaw at around 12:45pm hoping we actually had enough time. The driver had to ask a couple people where the place was, but sure enough we found it. $100CDN (for 4 kg!!!!) later and the package was on its way and we were heading back to the hotel to grab our luggage and get to the train station.
We walked from our hotel through the alley and found a taxi driver sleeping, but who promptly grabbed out attention and offered us a ride to Dadar Terminal. It was 1:14pm when we got in his car and we quickly explained that our train departed at 2pm. He said it would take about 45 minutes to get to the train station, but that he would do his best to get us there on time. The next 44 minutes (and I mean precisely the next 44 minutes) consisted of us dodging traffic, cutting off countless motorcycles, trucks, buses ,and cows, as well as running 3 red lights. We arrived at Dadar at 1:58pm. Jeff tipped the guy and we sprinted passed crowds of people. Several really helpful people directed us to the train. One guy even followed us and directed us to our slightly hidden platform. At 1:59pm we were on board the train and one minute later we were heading for Aurangabad. Running one less red light would have meant missing our train. We were lucky both to be alive and on this train.
About 30 minutes into the train ride it became apparent we were in the wrong train car and sitting in a much nicer class than we had paid for. Our seats, as it turned out, were on the other end of the train, which meant that we had to walk through 12 train cars, stepping over people, bags, and getting sandwiched between numerous objects and people. It would have been hellish if it hadn't been for Indian people and their patience and calmness, which was written all over their faces. At various points we shoved, stepped on, got in the way...yet it was nothing out of the ordinary for them. Oddly, this was kind of soothing, like they were telling us “relax, this is no big deal”. Upon recalling it though, this should have been another moment where we stopped to ask ourselves whether we will ever get a break?
We got to our seats finally and breathed a small sigh of relief. We were mostly just thankful that we were on the train. Two really cute young kids about the ages of 5-7 sat beside us. Their mother was across the aisle next to them wearing a burka and covering her face with only her eyes exposed. We offered the kids some mint gum and asked their mom if they could have some; she kindly gestured ok. The older brother spoke a bit of English and was very friendly and always smiling at us. The younger brother was quite shy and only took a piece of gum once his older brother did.
Most of the rest of the trip, the mom kept encouraging the older brother to speak to us in English. The young boy spoke very well, but was also quite shy. He was a really sweet kid. He asked where we came from and where we were going, among other things.
After this, there was more commotion about seats, which seems to happen on every train ride. People tend to switch seats to sit with people they are traveling with, so making everyone happy is like a game. We had taken someone else's seat, but it had been offered to us by another man so that we could sit together. But this just added a layer of complexity to a young man who was trying to sort everything out. This guy reminded both Jeff and I of an Indian Dimitri Ifantis, someone from back home that Jeff plays soccer with. Again, like most Indians, he had seemingly infinite patience with his nearly impossible task, and he was helping himself and others figure out the seating arrangements with class and the air of leader. It was quite impressive. In about 10 minutes, everyone in the car seemed to be satisfied with their seats. It was hilarious to watch. The guy asked for our tickets two or three times just to understand who had moved where.
Once things had settled down, we began watching the movie Lincoln. Unfortunately, it was very tough to understand anything that was going on in the movie because of the noisiness of the train. And this is most definitely a movie you need to pay very close attention to because each detail is essential to the whole story. We’ll have to watch it again from the beginning. Seemed like a very interesting movie from what I understood of it!
The seat next to our (three seats on each side of the aisle) was a seat that was typically occupied by one or two of the three children of the nice family we had met. At this point it was the Sister that was sitting next to us. She was very shy and reserved, and she didn't speak any English. We offered to buy her some candy from a vendor who came down the aisle, but she refused our offer several times. We kinda felt sad she wouldn't take anything, especially since we had earlier given some stuff to her brother. We hoped that she didn't feel left out. However, later on, when she was sitting a couple rows in front of us, she looked back and we locked eyes; she smiled at me then and I felt that she appreciated our offer.
As the train arrived in Aurangabad the little boy we had spoken to approached us with his father and shook our hands and wished us the best of luck. We have met so many lovely people on trains in India. People on the trains are real, unlike most of the people we typically interact with that are part of the tourism industry.
We were exhausted and excited to get our hotel to eat and get cleaned up. It turned out that our hotel room was quite nice. It was carpeted and looked well taken care of. The shower was hot, but unfortunately there’s no wifi even though their website says they have Internet access.
Let's face though, we're in India...we will never have it all!
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