Trains, Planes, and Automobiles. Oh My!

More like, oh my God! We left Rishikesh by car, small car. It was fine though. It's a one hour drive through farmland, big trees and small villages. We get caught in traffic jams along the way in busy market places which seem to be in the middle of nowhere. We stop for a train for about five minutes and motor bikes wiz by our open windows to make it to he front of the line.

We know we are in Hardiwar when When Shiva statues begin to appear. The first one we spot looks like it's 10 stories high lunging high into the sky out of the Ganges river. A friend from the festival leaves us at the train station to catch a bus so we are now officially a duo instead of a trio. We have an hour before our train so we find a place to sit and relax by the toilets.(that's what they call bathrooms here). A row of men and women sitting across from us stare incessantly. I forgot how uncomfortable this can feel. But after a few minutes they are back in thier own worlds. An old man begging approaches us slowly, pushing a walker in front of hom, step by step. He puts his fingers to his month and says something in Hindi. Priscilla says all she has to do is look into their eyes and she's reaching in her pocket for 10 rupees. He holds out a metal cup and she drops it in. We watch as he approaches the row of people across from us. Now we are staring to see what happens. They pretty much ignore and turn away from him.

We find our train and board. Not exactly what we expected but our car to Hardwar wasn't either. We had paid for a big car and ended up stuffed into and car smaler than my Vibe. With the language barrier it's difficult to know whether this is intentional or not. We are now sitting on the train eating tomato spanish spice potato chips from our new Hindu friends. It's dark out now, about 7pm. There's a lot of comotion, people talking, babies crying and playing with loud toys. Our train arrives at 2:30am. We're setting the cell phone to wake us up at 2 hoping it doesn't lose time like it has before during the night.There are three beds on each side of our compartment, stacked to the top. And then two more that face us from the other side of the walk way. There is an older couple sitting there facing us. They offered us chips and bought us Chai soon after leaving the station. It's the best chai tea in India! A younger woman sits across from us alone. We are hoping that no one else shows up and we have this area to ourselves. We find out that she is an artist and she shows us a small photo album of her paintings. They are beautiful. Mostly Indian themes of Ganesh(the elephant headed God), women and landscapes. Some abstracts too. She is returning from an exhibition of her work in Dehradun. She told us that when her son was born he had an eye du\isease that kept her home with him. She would meditate and one day God gave her this gift. That is how she learned to paint. Some of her paintings are amazingly realistic with fabric flowing and hills rolling. Very fluid and beautiful. We're not sure if we will sleep as we've noticed small furry creatures scampering about on the floor looking for something to eat. Priscilla and I are trying to control our gasps and the Indian people think we are being funny. Ha Ha At least we have the top bunks.
Good Night. Sleep Tight. Don't Let The Mice Bite!
Namaste~ Lynne