April 17, 2004

Not Quite Heaven!

Perhaps it was that we’d enjoyed Kashmir so much. Perhaps it was just the skanky black industrial filth that clogged our noses. Perhaps it was the deeply callous tone of the head ticket collector. Perhaps it was that he seemed to be taking far more interest in joining his friends in kicking the shit out of some scrawny guy behind the counter. Perhaps it was that even though we had valid tickets, there were still no seats available for us on the train to Delhi.



Jammu (just south of Kashmir) saw a lot of fighting in the last few decades, and although it is largely at peace now, I’m afraid if we’d stayed any longer, Blair and I would have started our own war. Whatever it was, something possessed us to take another dingy old ‘Deluxe’ bus (having just travelled more than 10 hours from Shrinagar on one) and get the hell out of Jammu.

Even the nicer buses in India would probably not be considered roadworthy back home. This was not nice bus: Even without the seat in front of me being stuck in fully reclined position, there would have been precious little legroom. The bus felt a lot more like a sauna than a bus, as it waited until every last seat was full, before leaving more than one hour late. The guys behind and in front of me were fighting about something or other, and the hindi pop music that blared through the speakers impertinently louder than the speakers could handle, lent new meaning to the word obnoxious.

After one of the longest nights of my life, interspersed with spats of fitful sleep and murderous dreams, we finally drew into Delhi. You can tell you’re getting close to Delhi when the horizon disappears in a cloud of smog, and you find yourself chewing on the pollution. Aaaah... it’s good to be back...

Posted by Andrew Wallace @ 5:11 PM