One Geek

Saturday

Meet up with some TEAR people who were visiting a local community health project. Had a bit of a chat. Then climbed up the hill further to have a bit of a walk and catch a glimpse of the magnificant Himalayas. I ended up walking around a littleloup and coming to a place called La Tibia. There was a little coffee shop with a viewing platform on the top. I had Chia (10Rs bit of a rip of really) a packet of Lays(10Rs) and paid to look through the binnoculas(10Rs). Not a bad deal I think at less then $1 for the whole lot. The views were fantastic from the top of the planet. If anyone has any doubts about there being a higher creative force in control go look at the Himalayas. Seriously they are huge. Orders of magnitude larger and go on for a very long distance.

After this I went on a search for Sisters bizare. After calling up the people I was giving a suprise visit to twice I found it. Had a bit of a chat. Scot the American guy I was visiting had visited Duncan Hospital whilst I was there. So it was was fun to catch up.

After this I had a late lunch at the hospital. Then went to visit a family I know to finish fixing there PC. Except it took me ages to work out were there house was. I had only been there once. It was good fun visiting them. Then I was meant to go to another house to finish another PC but I had forgotten how to get to it.

So I went back to my room. I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was pretty funky. Bit confused. Have to watch it again.

Sunday

Went to Union Church in the morning. Mainly because the people from Tear were going to be there. It was alright. Bit boring though. I really don’t enjoy singing hymns. I’ve relised this whilst being in India. They are so slow and my mind wanders. Actually my mind wanders all the time but that’s a different story. I have also found that I know songs I don’t recognise the words for once the music starts.

Managed to score an invite to lunch at an Indian guys home. He was a pretty good cook. I think I would feel a lot better about Indian food if I hadn’t eaten as much mess food as I have. The two TEAR people also went to the lunch. One of the TEAR people gave me some Australian Cabury chocolate with native Australian animals. They were fun.

After lunch went shopping in the bizzare didn’t buy much. Stopped of at a Kashmir shop on my way back to the hospital and found out about a strike that was happening on Monday. When I was planing on leaving. Made me worry a little about my travel for Monday.

Then went to diner where I meet some nice South African med students. They were good quality. We all got invited to the doctor in charges place for desert(He knew them from his time in SA).

So I managed to score an invite to desert and lunch in one day. Not a bad days work. After that packed and watched a mediocar film.

Monday.

Finished packing in the morning. Bumed around all morning doing not much. Was told I’d leave at 1pm. Said a few goodbye’s. Asked whether/when I’d come back. I hate that question I have no way of knowing if/when I would return. I guess your meant to just give the nice generic reply of I’d love to/soon I hope. But that doesn’t really feel honest to me.

Anyway left in the hospital jeep to go and find a taxi at 1pm. Shops were pretty much all closed for the strike. It’s a strike cause some Hindu priest guy got taken to gaol for committing a murder. Anyway found a taxi without any problems. 350Rs and an 1h and half latter I arrived at the station. Had to wait 2 and half hours for my train to come.

There are so many beggars at Indian Railway stations. I don’t give them money(except once to a performing kid who was a bit of fun). I am fairly lucky being a man people don’t pester me for too long. But I saw a couple of white girls who were getting hounded by a group of 3-4 beggars. I felt a bit sorry for them. It’s hard to deal with them. I really want to give them money but I don’t think it helps. Anyway it’s okay.

I ran into someone I knew at the station. How freaky is that. I meet her after my first trip from Deraduen. And here I am meeting her at the station again. She’s in the same carriage of the train as me too. But not sitting anywhere near me.

So here I am sitting on the train. I decided that it’s probably safe to use my laptop on the train so here I am listening to music and preparing a blog entry. I didn’t charge my battery though so I only have an hour and a bit of battery. I am going to be so bored when it goes flat.

I should describe the Shatabi train for you my blog readers. The one I am on is an 8 passenger carriage train. It has air conditioned carriages with partially reclining chair seats. The carriage I am in feels as though it was made in the 70’s or early 80’s. Each carriage seats 64 passengers with sufficient but not great leg room. The train trip is about 5 and a half hours long covering a little over 300km distance. Food is provided on the train. It starts with tea/coffee and a snack. Followed by a juice popper. Then a meal latter in the trip(veg/non veg). The meal is Indian food in the style of airline food. In fact in many ways the service is similar to a plane. The mixture of people on this particular train is probably about 20 % western and 80% Indian. The cost of a ticket on this train is about 500Rs(less then $20). Which means that it’s a middle class train through and through.

It 6.44pm now which means I’ve made it through nearly two hours of this trip. I can’t be bothered to right any more for now. Maybe more latter. Maybe not.

It appears not.

Tuesday

Staying in quite a nice house in Delhi. I have wireless net access from my room which is quite funky. I have to go and find the new U2 albumn soon.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Mussoorie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.