My first sleeper train was a weird. Not unpleasant, just pretty weird. I found the train after sitting at Old Delhi station for an hour, the entirety of which was spent with around 3,000 Indians staring at me at any one time. After panicking 10 minutes before departure that there was no train at the platform, I realised that it had been stationary on the platform behind me for a good hour. I sheepishly took my place next to a well dressed Indian student and we got underway. As seems to be the norm, I was bombarded with questions like 'what salary?' and 'where your girlfriend?', but after this customary grilling from the Indian John Humphrys everything settled down, and the student got out his laptop. 'Casino Royale?' he asked.
'Um....yes?' I responded, a little unsure of the connotations of this question. He beamed with joy and put on the film, which neither of us were able to hear due to the noise of the train. This did, however, put me in a slightly uncomfortable situation, as every time it looked like I wasn't paying attention or was going to sleep, he would prod me and gesture to the film with a big grin on his face. As I was tired from Delhi this happened increasingly frequently, even when I rolled over and faced the wall. There were no limits to his persistence or lack of personal boundaries, as over the next half an hour he prodded my face, ribs, and weirdly enough, the back of my knees. Luckily the film eventually ended and I was allowed some respite, finding some sleep whilst clutching my bag to my chest in a state of permanent paranoia.
I woke at around four in the morning to find a rat on my leg. My blanket had slipped off and this opportunist little bastard was sitting below my knee beard, eating something unthinkable off the floor. My shock was so absolute that I let out a silent scream and kicked as hard as I could to displace the fucker. Luckily this was something the rat was completely unprepared for and as such sailed in a neat arc onto the neighbouring top bunk, where a large Goan was sleeping. The rat, seemingly unfazed by this experience, bucked down and continued with the task at hand - eating blankets.
I arrived in Bikaner, a city out in the desert near the border of Pakistan, after limited sleep or love for Indian trains. After some searching, I managed to find some simple, downmarket accommodation that I felt was just about passable. Just kidding, it was a fucking palace.
After checking in to my room (at a rate of a princely 2.50 a night) I decided to enter my first Indian town, and headed down to the old Bazaar.
Bikaner is known for it's spices, and they were everywhere. Every shop was selling an array of colours and crazy smells, which were frequently thrust into my unsuspecting mouth and eyes. Some kid threw masala in my face which wasn't massively helpful, but it meant that I can now say that it was a sight for sore eyes (heh).
Wherever I went, everybody was talking about Holi. 'You play Holi?' They would ask, and when I claimed ignorance of this apparently massive festival they would chuckle deeply and say something unhelpful, like 'be careful' or 'no white skin much longer ehhhhh?' or 'CHEMICAL BURN' (this last one was joyously shouted by all three of these kids in unison, which was weird).
This did fill me with a slight sense of foreboding, and as it got dark I headed back to my hotel to buckle down for the ensuing shitstorm that it seemed the next day would produce. I was not disappointed.
On waking I headed down for breakfast in the main courtyard. It was around 8 in the morning and with the exception of the incessant droning of the call to prayer, seemed pretty peaceful. 'huh' I thought to myself, 'what a load of bollocks'. It was as this sentence was mentally uttered that two things happened: my Chai tea arrived, and the war drums of the Mines of Moria started up. Out of these two occurrences I found the latter to be of more concern. The beating sounded relatively far away but was definitely getting closer with speed, and with it's increasing proximity seemed to gather ritualistic chanting. 'It's probably fine. They won't come into the hotel. Just finish your tea, then head out - They almost definitely don't kill westerners as a human sacrifice' I reasoned with myself. But in they came.
Strutting round the corner came a Pablo Escobar lookalike wearing aviators and a military looking uniform. On initial assessment I thought this was of little threat, he had one small bag of paint and was approaching me with an easy smile. 'See? He doesn't have a ritualistic dagger. It's just a chilled out drug lord'. However, 20 of his friends rounded the corner armed with super soakers and spray paint. Shit got real.
They covered everyone and everything in paint with massive smiles and slurred cries of 'Happy Holi!' and it became clear that everything about this festival was as good natured as it gets. There was one exception to this rule, which was the amount of whiskey drinking that was systematically enforced on everyone and everything - even the hotel dog was given liquor in his bowl. Everyone was singing this one song that I got the hang of due to the fact that the only word was Holi, and by ten o'clock the collected assembly was hammered. I was frequently made to dance on a table like a performing monkey while everyone else sprayed me with paint. This was an experience I'm unlikely to forget (or share with my kids), but one that was pretty awesome regardless of the fact that I could no longer see and looked like the yellow Power Ranger.
We were then whisked out into the Bazaar where carnage ensued for the next 12 hours in much the same vein - colours, whiskey, and shit loads of drunk Indians on scooters. Everything in Bikaner smelled of alcoholic sweat and seedy fat dudes, but it seemed that nothing could stop this tirade of irresponsible fun. But as with all good things it wound down and came to an end, so after the conclusion of this bizarre event I headed off to catch my rat filled sleeper train to Jaisalmer, the next stop in my trip through the desert, a journey which I spent the entirety of drunkenly taking pictures of my own face.
Jaisalmer was very relaxed. It had some amazing views, great food, and an impossible city plan that Daedalus would have been proud of. However, very little of note happened in Jaisalmer until I hopped on a camel and got out into the desert, so I'll skip to that part with the exception of a few sweet pictures.
Anyway. Having given some money to some dude as is the custom, I found myself in a jeep on the way to meet a man about a camel. After driving about 40k outside of the city we came into a small village, one that probably had been tribal in nature at some point but was now saturated with tourism. I met my guide for the next 30 odd hours - a nine year old child called Mithal, and his camel, Pipi Longstocking. How a Swedish children's character reached the Thar desert I don't know, but Pipi was his name.
And he was one chilled out mothereffin' camel.
Having met said boy and boarded said camel we headed off into the unknown. Only intrepid explorers and 200,000 odd tourists annually had ever trodden the ground that Pipi Longstocking was treading now, leading me to get pretty overexcited about the whole thing.
After regaining my composure briefly I promptly lost it again, making the assembly of people gathered for the sunset take 'hilarious' photos of me and the sun.
When the overwhelming nature of the sunset had passed, we headed a little further out to make camp for the night. It at this point that my stomach let off it's first warning shot, a low rumbling that signified nothing good. At this point I really should have heeded the signs and asked to be taken back to base, but everyone else was camping in the desert and I didn't want to look like a pussy, so I stayed. After laying down our mattresses our group sat and chatted under moonlight so bright it was like God had left the fridge open. The moon was so luminous that it was possible to see everything that you could during daytime, to the extent that I could make out the contours of my neighbour's face at 10 meters. Little to my knowledge this level of light would become a source of serious embarrassment to me in the space of a couple of hours. But at the time I thought little of it, put my head down, and attempted to sleep.
The stomach fired warning shot number two.
'That neither sounds nor smells good', I thought, and popped two Imodium as a precautionary measure. With what I assumed to now be a firm case of cork bum, I hit the hay, safe in the knowledge that a problem blocked is a problem that can wait until morning. This was not, however, the case, and at 4am in the glaring light of the moon the stomach fired warning shot number three, only with one small difference:
warning shot number three was not a warning shot. It was a live fire exercise.
I rose from my mattress and sprinted over the sand dunes at top speed in order to get to a safe distance from the blissfully sleeping encampment. After about 40 meters (which when day broke it became clear was not far enough) the pressure increased to dangerous levels leading the inevitable to happen, and with a frenzied acceptance of this fact I made my den in the crater of a sand dune, where I squatted for about half an hour, relatively close to tears.
Having buried my soiled trousers in the desert I now found myself naked from the waist down and pondering the enormity of the situation. I hadn't been wearing pants, and the only other clothing I had was a silk scarf back at camp. I reasoned that the only thing left for me to do was to fashion some sort of rudimentary diaper from this item, so I wearily approached camp in order to make this intention a reality.
At this time it became clear that Ian, a burly painter from Shoreditch, was a very light sleeper. As I reached my mattress he sat up and looked at me with a foggy, confused look. A moment passed. Another. Jim broke the silence first. 'You get a bit hot?' He asked, as this seemed to be the most logical explanation.
'.......Yes.' I responded after a moment. The light of the moon was uncompromisingly bright.
'Oh, ok.' I wrapped the scarf around myself.
'Jim, this is going to sound weird, but have you got any clothes I can buy off you?'
'Um....what?' His look was a little more suspicious now.
'I'll be honest, I just got food poisoning on a relatively serious scale. Can I buy some shorts off you?' Jim sat pondering this with an amused look. After a while he understandingly agreed to my proposition but wanted no money. I only realized later how much of a lifesaver this encounter was - if it had got to morning and all I had was a silk diaper on, the group may have been less understanding than Jim was on his own. So after a sunrise that I was completely unable to enjoy, we headed back to base.
However, Jim said nothing to anyone as far as I could tell, and after popping 4 Imodium to be on the safe side we made it back to Jaisalmer the next morning without further incident. After buying Jim some new shorts I parted ways with the group to head to Jodhpur, where I sit writing this in recovery mode.
I feel like I'm at an airport during heavy snow - grounded and a little miffed at being unable to move anywhere else. However with luck this will pass at some stage and I can go back to eating something other than plain rice. But, things could be worse, my view while writing this is far from crappy (heh) and it looks like my health is on the up.
But, for the time being, Adios.
'Um....yes?' I responded, a little unsure of the connotations of this question. He beamed with joy and put on the film, which neither of us were able to hear due to the noise of the train. This did, however, put me in a slightly uncomfortable situation, as every time it looked like I wasn't paying attention or was going to sleep, he would prod me and gesture to the film with a big grin on his face. As I was tired from Delhi this happened increasingly frequently, even when I rolled over and faced the wall. There were no limits to his persistence or lack of personal boundaries, as over the next half an hour he prodded my face, ribs, and weirdly enough, the back of my knees. Luckily the film eventually ended and I was allowed some respite, finding some sleep whilst clutching my bag to my chest in a state of permanent paranoia.
I woke at around four in the morning to find a rat on my leg. My blanket had slipped off and this opportunist little bastard was sitting below my knee beard, eating something unthinkable off the floor. My shock was so absolute that I let out a silent scream and kicked as hard as I could to displace the fucker. Luckily this was something the rat was completely unprepared for and as such sailed in a neat arc onto the neighbouring top bunk, where a large Goan was sleeping. The rat, seemingly unfazed by this experience, bucked down and continued with the task at hand - eating blankets.
I arrived in Bikaner, a city out in the desert near the border of Pakistan, after limited sleep or love for Indian trains. After some searching, I managed to find some simple, downmarket accommodation that I felt was just about passable. Just kidding, it was a fucking palace.
After checking in to my room (at a rate of a princely 2.50 a night) I decided to enter my first Indian town, and headed down to the old Bazaar.
Bikaner is known for it's spices, and they were everywhere. Every shop was selling an array of colours and crazy smells, which were frequently thrust into my unsuspecting mouth and eyes. Some kid threw masala in my face which wasn't massively helpful, but it meant that I can now say that it was a sight for sore eyes (heh).
Wherever I went, everybody was talking about Holi. 'You play Holi?' They would ask, and when I claimed ignorance of this apparently massive festival they would chuckle deeply and say something unhelpful, like 'be careful' or 'no white skin much longer ehhhhh?' or 'CHEMICAL BURN' (this last one was joyously shouted by all three of these kids in unison, which was weird).
This did fill me with a slight sense of foreboding, and as it got dark I headed back to my hotel to buckle down for the ensuing shitstorm that it seemed the next day would produce. I was not disappointed.
On waking I headed down for breakfast in the main courtyard. It was around 8 in the morning and with the exception of the incessant droning of the call to prayer, seemed pretty peaceful. 'huh' I thought to myself, 'what a load of bollocks'. It was as this sentence was mentally uttered that two things happened: my Chai tea arrived, and the war drums of the Mines of Moria started up. Out of these two occurrences I found the latter to be of more concern. The beating sounded relatively far away but was definitely getting closer with speed, and with it's increasing proximity seemed to gather ritualistic chanting. 'It's probably fine. They won't come into the hotel. Just finish your tea, then head out - They almost definitely don't kill westerners as a human sacrifice' I reasoned with myself. But in they came.
Strutting round the corner came a Pablo Escobar lookalike wearing aviators and a military looking uniform. On initial assessment I thought this was of little threat, he had one small bag of paint and was approaching me with an easy smile. 'See? He doesn't have a ritualistic dagger. It's just a chilled out drug lord'. However, 20 of his friends rounded the corner armed with super soakers and spray paint. Shit got real.
They covered everyone and everything in paint with massive smiles and slurred cries of 'Happy Holi!' and it became clear that everything about this festival was as good natured as it gets. There was one exception to this rule, which was the amount of whiskey drinking that was systematically enforced on everyone and everything - even the hotel dog was given liquor in his bowl. Everyone was singing this one song that I got the hang of due to the fact that the only word was Holi, and by ten o'clock the collected assembly was hammered. I was frequently made to dance on a table like a performing monkey while everyone else sprayed me with paint. This was an experience I'm unlikely to forget (or share with my kids), but one that was pretty awesome regardless of the fact that I could no longer see and looked like the yellow Power Ranger.
We were then whisked out into the Bazaar where carnage ensued for the next 12 hours in much the same vein - colours, whiskey, and shit loads of drunk Indians on scooters. Everything in Bikaner smelled of alcoholic sweat and seedy fat dudes, but it seemed that nothing could stop this tirade of irresponsible fun. But as with all good things it wound down and came to an end, so after the conclusion of this bizarre event I headed off to catch my rat filled sleeper train to Jaisalmer, the next stop in my trip through the desert, a journey which I spent the entirety of drunkenly taking pictures of my own face.
Jaisalmer was very relaxed. It had some amazing views, great food, and an impossible city plan that Daedalus would have been proud of. However, very little of note happened in Jaisalmer until I hopped on a camel and got out into the desert, so I'll skip to that part with the exception of a few sweet pictures.
Anyway. Having given some money to some dude as is the custom, I found myself in a jeep on the way to meet a man about a camel. After driving about 40k outside of the city we came into a small village, one that probably had been tribal in nature at some point but was now saturated with tourism. I met my guide for the next 30 odd hours - a nine year old child called Mithal, and his camel, Pipi Longstocking. How a Swedish children's character reached the Thar desert I don't know, but Pipi was his name.
And he was one chilled out mothereffin' camel.
Having met said boy and boarded said camel we headed off into the unknown. Only intrepid explorers and 200,000 odd tourists annually had ever trodden the ground that Pipi Longstocking was treading now, leading me to get pretty overexcited about the whole thing.
After regaining my composure briefly I promptly lost it again, making the assembly of people gathered for the sunset take 'hilarious' photos of me and the sun.
When the overwhelming nature of the sunset had passed, we headed a little further out to make camp for the night. It at this point that my stomach let off it's first warning shot, a low rumbling that signified nothing good. At this point I really should have heeded the signs and asked to be taken back to base, but everyone else was camping in the desert and I didn't want to look like a pussy, so I stayed. After laying down our mattresses our group sat and chatted under moonlight so bright it was like God had left the fridge open. The moon was so luminous that it was possible to see everything that you could during daytime, to the extent that I could make out the contours of my neighbour's face at 10 meters. Little to my knowledge this level of light would become a source of serious embarrassment to me in the space of a couple of hours. But at the time I thought little of it, put my head down, and attempted to sleep.
The stomach fired warning shot number two.
'That neither sounds nor smells good', I thought, and popped two Imodium as a precautionary measure. With what I assumed to now be a firm case of cork bum, I hit the hay, safe in the knowledge that a problem blocked is a problem that can wait until morning. This was not, however, the case, and at 4am in the glaring light of the moon the stomach fired warning shot number three, only with one small difference:
warning shot number three was not a warning shot. It was a live fire exercise.
I rose from my mattress and sprinted over the sand dunes at top speed in order to get to a safe distance from the blissfully sleeping encampment. After about 40 meters (which when day broke it became clear was not far enough) the pressure increased to dangerous levels leading the inevitable to happen, and with a frenzied acceptance of this fact I made my den in the crater of a sand dune, where I squatted for about half an hour, relatively close to tears.
Having buried my soiled trousers in the desert I now found myself naked from the waist down and pondering the enormity of the situation. I hadn't been wearing pants, and the only other clothing I had was a silk scarf back at camp. I reasoned that the only thing left for me to do was to fashion some sort of rudimentary diaper from this item, so I wearily approached camp in order to make this intention a reality.
At this time it became clear that Ian, a burly painter from Shoreditch, was a very light sleeper. As I reached my mattress he sat up and looked at me with a foggy, confused look. A moment passed. Another. Jim broke the silence first. 'You get a bit hot?' He asked, as this seemed to be the most logical explanation.
'.......Yes.' I responded after a moment. The light of the moon was uncompromisingly bright.
'Oh, ok.' I wrapped the scarf around myself.
'Jim, this is going to sound weird, but have you got any clothes I can buy off you?'
'Um....what?' His look was a little more suspicious now.
'I'll be honest, I just got food poisoning on a relatively serious scale. Can I buy some shorts off you?' Jim sat pondering this with an amused look. After a while he understandingly agreed to my proposition but wanted no money. I only realized later how much of a lifesaver this encounter was - if it had got to morning and all I had was a silk diaper on, the group may have been less understanding than Jim was on his own. So after a sunrise that I was completely unable to enjoy, we headed back to base.
However, Jim said nothing to anyone as far as I could tell, and after popping 4 Imodium to be on the safe side we made it back to Jaisalmer the next morning without further incident. After buying Jim some new shorts I parted ways with the group to head to Jodhpur, where I sit writing this in recovery mode.
I feel like I'm at an airport during heavy snow - grounded and a little miffed at being unable to move anywhere else. However with luck this will pass at some stage and I can go back to eating something other than plain rice. But, things could be worse, my view while writing this is far from crappy (heh) and it looks like my health is on the up.
But, for the time being, Adios.
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