Travel Stories

Bad Luck with Train, Good Luck with Bus. March 2, 2005, Shimla, India, by Xerxes Marduk

Part 2

At 6.30 I was awoken by the ticket collector. I showed him my ticket and he said the words I was dreading to hear and never want to hear again. "You are on the wrong train." He said. Oh shit, I thought. Oh shit oh shit. I looked into his eyes, hoping that they would break into merry mirthfulness and he would say, just kidding son. But instead he said. "At next stop you get down and get refund." Still in a state of shock I was sharp enough to push my case by saying the announcement on the loud speakers has said my train would be next to leave from platform eight. He had no rebuttal for this, and simply repeated to me what he had said before. He said something to a man sitting next to me in Hindi, probably, make sure this guy gets off at the next stop.

I didn't have much time to dwell on the possibilities my mistake now presented me with because our train slowed down and stopped. The man next to me nodded that this was where I was supposed to get off. I grabbed my bags and hurried to the doors of the train only to find a trash strewn, muddy embankment greeted me instead of the concrete platform of a train station. I craned my head out of the door to look in both directions down the track and saw off in the distance behind us almost a kilometer distant some sort of large building. Was that the station I was meant to get off at? And if so why had the train gone so far past it. The cows standing a little ways away staring stupidly at me offered no practice advice, unless you could consider a belligerent Mooo advice. The man who had been instructed to be my guardian, apparently, appeared over my shoulder and motioned for me to jump off here. Why not, I decided as I climbed down into the muddy ground.

I started the long walk towards the building along side the silent train and its noisy occupants, expecting any moment to have something carelessly thrown or spit on me out of the window, as Indians are known to do. Eventually I got to the station, hot, tired and thirsty. I walked past doors that said, Station Master, Station Inspector, and Sub-Station General. I chose the last one completely at random as the place I would inquire about getting a refund for my missed trains and find out when the next train back to Delhi be.

Inside was two, middle aged me who both ignored me when I walked in. I handed one of them my tickets and explained in simple terms my woeful story. As I explained a train slowly stopped at the far platform at the station from where I was. The man pointed to the train and said, "Delhi. Hurry." Encouraged by his optimistic attitude I ran across lines of muddy train tracks with a few other desperate looking locals and hauled myself onto the train. Forget about trying to find a seat, the train was already packed over capacity before I had got on. Forget about a ticket also, I hadn't had time to buy one, and I doubted anybody on board really cared anyway.

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