Planes, Trains and Autorickshaws

After leaving Kashmir, I flew into New Delhi with the hopes of catching a connecting flight out to the far western desert of India and a city called Jaisalmer. I was not able to make the connecting flight, so I went to the train station and got on a 19 hour train to Jaisalmer. Getting the train ticket was the usual Indian pain in the ass. I told my taxi driver to take me from the airport to the train station. He asked if I had a ticket. I wasn’t thinking and said that that was why I had to get to the train station, so I could buy my ticket. He of course, brings me to some friend of his travel agency. I wouldn’t even get out of the car to play his game and yelled at him to get going. As he bullshitted me his friend comes out and tries to give me the sell. I said to him nicely I wasn’t interested, but thank you. The travel agency guy said something rude and walked away. I didn’t let it get to me, because I had a whole lot of Kashmiri patience built up. The taxi guy finally got going and dropped me at the train station. The reason I didn't want to deal with the travel agent was, first, he would charge me 25% on top of the ticket fee for doing the same thing I could do by walking up to the counter and because at the train station is a Foreign Tourist Advance Booking Office which allows you to buy tickets that are put aside for foreign tourists even after the train is sold out. The travel agent doesn't have that ability. I would be leaving from a different train station but had to go to this one because that is where the office is to buy the tourist ticket. When I got to the foreign ticket office they wouldn’t sell me the train ticket because it had to be more than 4 hours in advance of the trains departure. It was now 3hours and 45 minutes before. I was 15 minutes past the cut off, because of the taxi driver and his games. I now had to go to the train station I was departing from and stand in a massive line. I'm not going to let it bother me and thought of Dal Lake. I then had to get an auto rickshaw to go between train stations but none of the drivers wanted to take me because it’s such a short distance. It should cost 50 rupees and most wanted 150. I waited them out until I got one to take me. Patience, I thought. I got to the train station and as I was looking at the ticket windows a younger guy came up and said where are you going? I said Jaisalmer. He said, oh, you need to go to this counter and pointed to a long line. I waited for about a half an hour in that line only to find out it was the wrong line. When I was walking to the right line I saw the younger guy looking at me and laughing, I walked up to him and poked him in the chest with my finger and called him a liar. He ran off. OK, Dal Lake was now boiling and I could snap at any minute. Must get ticket quickly and drink a cold Sprite, is what I was now thinking. I waited in the other line for about 45 minutes. As I waited, people were constantly coming up to the front and cutting in, but no one in the line seemed to care. Crisp, clean and caffeine free I kept thinking as I imagined holding cold the bottle up to my head. As I got about three people from the counter a guy went to cut in at the counter. I stepped forward and put my arm out and said No and gestured to the back of the line. He said, "Oh, it's OK and cut in again." I grabbed him and I'll say, "Positively guided him in the direction of the back of the line. I didn't see him again. Finally I got my ticket. When it came time to buy the ticket, I decide to buy one of the nicer 2nd Class Sleeper train spots rather than the usual General Sleeper, mainly because there would be less people and touts and I was afraid I might kill someone if they woke me in the night to sell me something.

On the train, I went to bed at 10:30pm. The other 3 bunks were empty. At 1:00am three Indian men would come in and sit down and turn the light on. I’m on the top bunk, they are sitting on the bottom ones. The talked really loudly for about a half an hour before I had had enough. I had to compose myself first because I initially was going to jump down and start slitting throats. Not quickly slitting them, just nice and methodical. I plainly asked them to stop talking and turn the light off and explained that it was 1:30am. They said OK but it would be about another 30 minutes before they actually stopped talking and went to bed.

When I got to Jaisalmer, a driver from my hotel was suppose to meet me. I waited and was bombarded by other taxi drivers. I said no and told them all I was waiting for my hotel driver to come. One guy said, “no you’re hotel is full you need to come to mine.” Another told me that my hotel sent him to get me but when I asked, he didn’t know the name of my hotel. After a while a guy came up to me and said he drove for my hotel and said the name (I had said the name to some of the drivers earlier so I think that's how he knew) I told the guy that I recognized him as a driver from a different hotel. He said he drove for both and he would give me a free ride. I figured a free ride's a free ride. The whole way he badgered me to come to his hotel instead. Finally when he realized I wasn’t giving in he said, OK, your hotel is right up that street and dropped me at the corner. I could see the large fort in the city way off in the distance and knew my hotel was near it and told him we weren’t near it. He said we were and quickly drove off. When I asked a shop owner how far I was from the hotel, he said 2k. Another Tout. I had a nice walk in the desert heat. Once at my hotel I found out that the train had gotten in 45 minutes early then scheduled and the driver from my hotel hadn't gotten there yet. I dropped off my bag in my room, walked up to the roof top restaurant and sipped my crisp cold Sprite.