Page 158 - Exile-ebook

158 AN EXILE OF THE MIND THE HIPPIE TRAIL 159

train. Passengers were shoved and
elbowed into jam-packed carriages.
Impossible to follow as those
desperate from behind crawled
under legs to clutch at anything
bolted where they hung on in a death
grip until the train’s departure.
Many scrambled to ‘alfresco class’
atop the train or clung perilously
from its sides. To suck in coughing
black smoke belched from the train
as it steamed underway.
We climbed through a window
onto a crate of chickens. We had
tickets, the chickens didn’t. Their
owner had the best seat on the train,
Farmhouse north of Kashmir in the Himalayas. stretched out in the luggage rack
above. We quickly claimed our bum-
untreated water as we drove through was an alternative capital in the pukka numbing seats amidst approving
the Punjab. With its rear end newly days of the British Raj. passengers.
dented, our bus finally reached In New Delhi we slept on top of a The heat in the carriage was
reached Srinagar in Kashmir. hotel roof, our alfresco accommodation oppressive despite unglazed win-
The magical backdrop of the above the heat of pavements. We dows. I sat cool and collected in the
Himalayas stretched the horizon awoke the next day at cockcrow for washroom with a splash of water to
from east to west. Their reflection the train to Varanasi, our jumping off revive the senses. To later discover
shimmered in the calm waters of Dal point for Nepal. With a cheery goodbye our passports and money missing.
Lake where we rented a luxurious to our fellow travellers who had shared The leather neck pouch had
houseboat for a dollar a day. Its sign our adventure on the bus, we headed flipped off the hook where I put it
advertised ‘Supper Deluxe’. Our for the train station, side-stepping red- and down the loo onto the tracks
Kashmiri punkah wallah, called Fareed stained betel-spit sidewalks and the whizzing the kilometres away below.
Fatehbhoop (Fred for short) cooked usual beseeching hands reaching out Fellow passengers shook their heads
breakfast and ferried us around the for a rupee. and pressed rupees into a reluctant
lake in a gondola-style shikara. During At the station a mad scrimmage hand. My fare to go back and haunt
the hot Delhi months this cool valley erupted near the open doors of the Third class Indian train carriage. the railway tracks for the pouch