Day 76: Nov 19. Long Day's Journey into Night

1:30am. Tipping the receptionist at the hotel, we walked the short distance back to the train station and waited for ours to arrive. Of course it was late (although only by a half hour which was a blessing!) and in the meantime we watched a playful puppy lick everything in site and a homeless man steal the flip flops of another homeless man while he slept. It was a sobering wait.

We finally made it onto the train and settled in before climbing onto our beds and passing out. Although this time we were in 2nd class sleeper, it was more comfortable than the A/C class because there was no A/C blowing into our faces (it got cold at night anyway as we headed north!), and because surprisingly, the beds were longer in this class, leaving us more room when we slept with our bags. It wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as our first sleeper train in India.

When we awoke in the morning, we nibbled on some "breakfast," and passed the day dozing, looking out the window and reading. At one point while Karla was napping, Alicia was reading on her top bunk, and a woman across the way motioned her down. Alicia thought she was letting her sit in a more comfortable position, so she brought her book down, but the woman motioned her 21-year-old daughter over and had her practice her English! We had a lovely conversation about our lives, education, and a tiny bit of politics. She chastized me for not knowing that the governor of Louisiana is Indian. Oops!

This girl, whose name I unfortunately can no longer remember, was going with her family to move to a town in Punjabi state to teach Hindi at a secondary school. It was the first time she was leaving her state of Rajasthan (except for the 2 days she went to Delhi to interview for this position), and now she was going to be living in Punjabi for 3 years! Luckily, although her father and sister were just there to 'settle' her, her mother was making the move with her. Karla and I were jealous. Mommies, can you move with us?

Within the last hour of the train ride (around 3:30) the conductors came over to check our tickets for the third time! As we began to be irritated, they sat down and we figured out that they too just wanted to chat. They were very friendly, and wanted to exchange pens. Not about to part with our one remaining functioning pen, Karla rustled up a #2 pencil, sharpened it with her pocket knife, and thrilled them with tales of how all American schoolchildren had to use these pencils for every exam. They were impressed and happy that it was an American pencil. And we in turn received pens that say 'om shantra' which means 'peace within'. We are still trying to get them to write well...

We asked them one more time when our stop would be, then they left us. We finally got off the train in Pathankot at 4:50pm (!) and walked to the bus station, with a quick detour at a tourism office to make sure we knew where we were going.

As we walked into the bus station, the bus to Dharamsala was pulling away! We asked someone when the next bus would be, and it wasn't until 9:30pm, getting into Dharamsala around 1 am. Although we were disappointed that we missed the first one, we were relieved that there WAS another bus tonight, so we resigned ourselves to calling some hotels to make sure that we'd have a room as soon as we arrived.

While Karla was on the phone and Alicia was guarding the stuff, she was approached by an American man who asked if we'd be interested in sharing a cab with him up to McLeod Ganj, where our hotel was. Our only concern was the price, and neither of us had the energy to haggle, but Scott, the American, said he'd be happy to bargain, and he left his baggage in my charge while Karla procured a room for us.

Scott was successful. We got a cab for 500 Rs (just over $10) a person, including a generous tip. We made the 2.5 hour journey high up into the mountains in a nice cab with pleasant conversation and finally relaxed! We were sooo glad that we took a cab, especially since we arrived at our hotel 15 minutes before our bus would have left the station! Although it was 5 times more expensive to take the cab, sometimes that's what you have to do when you're on the road for 31 hours!

We said goodnight to Scott, (who thanked us again for being at the bus station - he was just as weary as we were!), settled into our hotel, and had dinner next door. Although it was cold out (finally! Alicia has had enough of summer weather - 6 months of feeling hot is excessive!), we both took hot showers, and finally tumbled into bed.
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