DELHI, India (Sept. 15, 2008) -- And so farewell India.
I'm supposed to be here another day but I'm leaving after this email for the airport to try to get on the 12:40 a.m. flight for Paris tonight instead of tomorrow night.
Why? Oh, I guess might have something to do with, um, oh yeah, explosions and what have you. I'm currently holed up in an executive suite at the Ambassador Hotel. I have no desire to wander around safe markets anymore in this country, much less targetted ones.
If the airline can't get me on that flight I plan on speanding the day at the Taj hotel's huge swimming pool doing laps and drinking beer.
Either way, I won't write again from India anytime soon. There are a few other places I'd like to see before returning here.
The last day, though, was a fun one. Shortly after getting on the train last night I ran into an Aussi guy who I had met at a hostel's movie night in Pushkar. I ran into him again this morning on the train while I was zoning out in the area between cars which had a door you could open at anytime to see the countryside go by. Totally not safe.
"I'm thinking of going up on the roof," the Aussi, a tall skinny dude with wild hair, said. "At the last stop I saw some people up there. Want to go?"
"On the roof? I don't know," I said.
Aussis seem to have a way of making the most insane ideas sound completely rational.
"It might be an experience," he said distantly.
I thought for a minute and concluded that I wasn't going to be able to do this again anytime soon and told him that I would go get my sunglasses and then we'd go up.
When the train came to the next stop we jumped off and trotted down the platform to a car that had the "ladder" to get to the roof. It wasn't a conventional ladder, but it was obviously there to let people get up, but only the limber, stupid ones.
So we climbed up and the Aussi says to the only other guy up there, an Indian, "It's safe?"
What a question. I didn't even bother to look at the Indian's response. This was most certainly not the surgeon general of railway safety waiting for us up there.
"We'll have to duck for bridges and stuff," the Aussi said. I forget his name.
So we sat there as the train started moving, our backsides on the edge of one car and feet planted on the industrial rubber section that connects the cars. I was holding on for dear life but didn't feel that unsafe. Unlike in the back of taxis.
We had to duck a few times, once for a bridge and another time for a tree, and then it started raining. We were close to Delhi by this point and so we were making stops every few minutes, so I knew we wouldn't be up there long.
The rain started coming down harder and just then the train started to slow. When it stopped we climbed down and a guy on the platform yelled at us, "Ah, Indians!"
"Something like that," I said.
Once back in the car, I thanked the Aussi for inviting me up.
"Yeah, mate," he said, "Might make a funny story."
India is a lot like that. I would compare it to golf in a lot of ways. In a single hole of golf I can hit a good drive and love the game and would rather be doing nothing else. On the very next shot I can shank one and feel the urge to slowly and methodically break every club in my bag and watch them sink to the bottom of the nearest pond.
But an English girl on the train probably summed it up best when she said, "India is amazing, but it's hard work."
Take care,
Brett
