Two days on the Train

We had been riding in sleeper cars up until this point, but because the journey from Delhi to New Jalpaguri takes over 36 hours, I decided to splurge for an air-conditioned two-tier which I hoped would be more comfortable and less crowded.

For the first few hours, I found myself alone in my section. I immediately closed the curtain over the opening to the hallway, bundled up in a blanket and fell asleep. Some time later, I was joined by an Indian business man, who talked to me about his family and his job at an American telecom company. It was interesting to see a face on the other side of all of the American outsourcing to India.

When he left, I was alone again for a few more hours until I was joined by a family consisting of a mother, a father, a son and an older man who appeared to be the grandfather. When they entered, I was sprawled out on the bottom bench reading my book and they all piled in on the adjacent bench facing me. The audience made me somewhat uncomfortable, so I sat up and offered up the end of my bench. The father moved over to my side and I went back to reading my book.

After a few more hours, I began to get sleepy and decided to move up to the top berth where I could spread out and leave the bottom berths to the family below. They all watched as I hefted my bag and then my blanket and pillow up to the top. I then climbed up and settled in, feeling quite anti-social, but reasoning that, when I fell asleep, I would prefer the relative privacy of the top berth to the fishbowl exposure of the bottom. My privacy soon became all the more private when I found that the air-conditioning vent was located right above my new bed and the only way to escape the onslaught of freezing air was to burrow completely under the blanket from head to toe. I’m not sure what the Indian family thought of me, but I must have been a strange site.

I had bought some cereal bars at one of the mini-groceries catering to westerners in anticipation of my long train ride, but after 24 hours on the train, I found that I hadn’t brought enough water and was extremely thirsty. When I finally emerged from my cocoon, the family who had been there previously had left and a new family had taken their place. There was no longer any room for me on the bottom benches and so when I returned from my quick dip out at the train station for water, I had to return to the top, where I had no choice but to duck right back under the covers.

Finally, the train arrived in New Jalpaguri. Somehow I got from the train station to the hotel that I had chosen from the guide book – memories that escape me now. When I walked into the hotel in New Jalpaguri, I was told that they had no more vacant singles, but that I could have a double at a discounted rate. I agreed and asked to see the room. A man showed me to the room and, as in most of the hotels and guesthouses I had stayed in, encouraged me to settle in before coming out to check in. I was not hungry, but I was feeling the effects of the lack of a consistent sustainable diet, so I decided to check in, take a quick shower and inquire as to a good local restaurant.

Upon leaving my room, I found that I could not get the key to work, so I left the room unlocked and went to the front desk to sign in. Everywhere I went in both Vietnam and India, each time you checked into a new hotel you were required to sign a guest register with your name, passport number, country of origin, previous destination and subsequent destination. Just as I had finished filling in all of my information and had handed my passport over the counter to the hotel manager, I felt myself becoming extremely lightheaded and the realization that if I did not make it back to my room quickly, I would soon find myself on the floor, rushed through my mind. As I turned and hurried back to my room, I was grateful that I had been unable to lock the door.

I laid in the bed until the feeling subsided and soon heard a knock at the door. When I answered it, the man who had showed me the room asked me if I was feeling okay and I explained that I was fine, but I had not eaten in a while and needed to get some food. He recommended a restaurant just down the street and I thanked him and got ready to head out for some food.

The restaurant that he recommended was unlike any other I’d been to in India up until that point. Very much like a North American fast food restaurant, there were pictures of menu items on a display above the counter, behind which young adults in paper caps stood ready to punch your order into an automated cash register. It was more than a little strange given my surroundings. I ordered a Chinese dish (Chinese food is big in India) and ate what I could in order to get me through to the following morning. I was getting used to forcing myself to eat and not finding food appealing, but I was not enjoying it.

After dinner, I walked back through the dimly lit streets to my hotel, aware of curious looks from people standing in the shadows and happily settled into my bed, glad to finally have had a decent meal and to be able to sleep in stationary bed.