Night train back from Bodhgaya

Leaving Bodhgaya on the back of our Honda Hero 125 (Sanjeev driving and Ishu in the middle) I had another one of those moments... it's pitch black, we stop for gas, all of a sudden Sanjeev takes off and runs across the road.

Ishu starts up the bike and is beeping the horn we need to go, it's 17 kms, a long way to go on an overloaded 125cc motorbike in the black Bihar night, on the potholed roads with the trucks, speeding cars, other cycles, auto rickshaw's (they are bigger here), and the occasional pedestrian, cycle rickshaw without lights, or dog. We dodge and weave and bump for 30 minutes and enter Gaya.

Traffic crawls the last 2 kms, it takes 15 minutes or so... dust thick enough you feel it in your eyes and every breath, we are stuck behind some trucks and a jam up, 2 trucks can't fit on the town road at the same time, and there are a bunch of them going both ways. While they move over as close as possible to the shops, stalls, open air eateries, and buildings at a snail pace, cycles and cars are trying to slip by at every opportunity.

I am questioning myself why didn't I just get an autorickshaw? It would be as dusty and noisy, but much less dangerous! We inch along, a hair behind a big truck, vying to pass on whichever side opens up with a pack of cycles and autorickshaws, even though it's 9:30 on a Monday night it is crowded everywhere you look. My eyes are feeling the grit, I look at the open air food stalls and shops on the side of the
road you can see the dust in a thick layer on everything, I cannot believe people eat the food being prepared right there, but that's life at normal here. We finally blessedly are turning off and into the train station, whew!

Negotiating the "road" in, there's no pavement, just potholed, bumpy dirt with gravel and rocks, it's just as dusty as the road.

We say our goodbyes at the station entry and it is packed, people laying everywhere, I'm looking for a signboard and find an e-board, all in hindi, but my train number and time are there, and there are the dot-matrix printouts of passengers tacked up on the wall, in english. I don't find my train number, and while my ticket says confirmed, they always tell you that doesn't mean anything until you confirm it at the station. My ticket says a car but not a berth number. There's no listing for my train but a little Tourist help office is open, and the man in there takes my ticket and confirms I have a berth, my car isn't A1 but H1, and I am berth F. Great! Now 40 minutes til train time I walk around the whole station it takes about 5 minutes, there are 2 snack bars, each with a choice of tea biscuit cookies, bottled water, soda, or the chip type things they eat there, a book store with all Hindi books
except one or two Business type english books and some trash novels, and that's about it. People are laying around on the floor everywhere, there's no place to sit and as usual it is too dirty to sit on the ground. I follow the signs upstairs to the "1st class" waiting room, across from the retiring rooms with beds for a small fee, and quickly decide the dirty crowded platform is a better choice, at least there's a chance of a breeze. Back downstairs I walk the building again, buy a pack of biscuits and a bottle of water, and walk way to the end where I find a place to sit. A train pulls in, the announcement is in hindi, the e-board doesn't show the number, and it says Howrah Express on it. Not mine, I'm on the calcutta-Delhi express I think... people start getting on, it's a long one, and the clock says 10:22... my train is due at 10:19, I better check. No english speakers around someone
looks at my ticket and points at a railroad worker. Yes this is the train, your car is all the way at the other end, hurry, run!, and he takes off at a sprint leading the way. I follow, with my loaded backpack and rueing the 2 full bottles of water it's only a minute I'm pouring sweat, and as we pass about 13 cars by my count
get to of course the last car before the engine, where the conductor is standing with his list shaking his head and waiting impatiently. "Is this" I start to ask, Berth F upper, he says, without looking at my ticket, and he checks off his paper and walks off with a sideways shaking of his head. I am winded, hot, sweaty, dusty, tired, with a heavy pack on my back, and as I enter the berth, everything gets nice.

There are red fabric seat/beds, ac, it's spacious and clean. Several stewards show up, one brings a fresh bottle of cold water!, the other has clean sheets and a wool blanket, which he spreads out on my berth. Then they are gone and I am meeting the one other person in there, who owns a textile company (nationwide), lives in Gaya, and is heading to Delhi to meet up with his wife who is with her parents, before flying off to Goa (THE seaside resort town of India)for holiday, and then traveling on for 2 more weeks of business. We chat a while I show him my pics he shows me his
laptop full and starts with the wedding pics. He does things in a big way, has a 40,000 square foot home, had plannned to fly 300 people to Bangkok for his wedding but 11/26 (terror attack on Mumbai) happened just days before so they had to completely replan the wedding for Delhi which they did in 2 days and everything went off splendidly. I MUST go to Goa, I MUST go to this restaurant, it's the best in all of India (it's where Hillary Clinton ate that, or the next day) everything is 5 star this, best in India that. Well I'm really more comfortable in 3 star places and I've had great food everywhere in India, for as little as 12 cents a plate, so ... ah, never mind. Yeah, well, maybe so, but I only have 2 days left and I think I'll just relax, visit Kuldeeps village. "Village, vILLAGE!, why would you want to visit a village?" We've been invited to. "Who invited you?" Our driver, Kuldeep! "DRIVER?!
DRIVER?! You must be very careful, trust me on this my friend, I know what I am talking about, you must NEVER trust ANY taxi driver in Delhi, they are not to be trusted with anything. You must not go to any village with driver, it could be very dangerous for you and your daughter, trust me, I'm telling you, I know this for a fact"... OK, well, we've been hanging out with him for like 3 weeks, and he seems to have been very honest in his dealings with us, he's helping my daughter learn hindi, and he has helped us negotiate a good many things we've required with all the
Visa hassles. I'd be very careful, my friend, trust me on this, I know what I am talking about... OK well, thanks and goodnight. (Later Julie tells me one of her new friends told her "WE don't mix with people like drivers to much", so that partly explains it... the caste/class thing), but still, now I have doubts again....

The bed is great! It's big and wide and pretty soft, I can stretch out, I doze off by midnight, to be awakened by the berth door slamming open and the light coming on an hour later. 2 more men drag their bags in and the other berths are prepared noisily in bright light, I stay under my pillow and don't even look, eventually the light goes off and I'm back to a fairly restful sleep. Awakened about 6 the door slams open Times of India is handed to me and I'm offered Juice. Breakfast is grand, cornflakes with hot milk? veg patties and fries, toast and orange marmalade, a ripe mango, and 2 tea bags and a hot pot of water, served on china, real silverware. The 2men aren't up yet so I take breakfast on the upper and avoid conversation with my downstairs neighbor, who sleeps late too, when he get's up we nod a good morning and that's good enough.

We crawl into Delhi the last 1/2 hour takes forever we go so slow
through the sprawling city. Julie and Kuldeep are picking my up at the station at 10:00, and we are in at 9:55, precisely on schedule. I follow the crowd up and across the concourse to the terminal building, but, it doesn't look familiar! Did I get off the wrong place? No, the train terminates here, this must be it. Down to the terminal which is not what I remember from buying my ticket. I got outside and no Kuldeep and Julie... hot beating sun, crowds, about 30 touts and taxi drivers persist, no, no, no, no... no where to sit down outside and no shade is uncrowded. I find a tiny piece of signpost shade and squint to read my phone text in the blazing sun. "We are here in front but don't see you" reads the text from Julie... it takes a few minutes of back and forth Kuldeep says I must be on the Paharganj side? Oh, the station has 2 terminal buildings, one on each side? That must be it... wow... what a place, this side is just as crowded as the other. 10 minutes later I've walked all the way back up the stairs and across the whole station, down again, and out to the street and find them. What a trip!