Monday, December 11, 2006

Fresh Lesson (salted)

One of the lessons that you learn real quick-like when you live in places where most people's language isn't yours, is 1. double check your tickets and 2. do it again. In Japan, i chalked this one up under "lesson learned" after missing a Green Car (first class train) ticket home from Tokyo. But sometimes even though you know your lessons, you need a reminder. I thought I had that one done in Beijing when we were lolling around the hostel with 30 'till departure at a train station that was an hour away, during rushhour.

But after Beach Blanket Bingo 'till the early hours, our facilities were less than razor sharp when we went to board our "3x the normal price cause you bought it from the owner of the guesthouse and besides today and tomorrow are holidays and i'll have to buy it on the black market so it'll be 1500 rupees" tickets from Goa to Bombay. So somewhere it was decided that 1. double check you tickets and 2. do it again ought to be learned one more time, or at least have a little reinforcement.

Reinforcement came at 10:00am in the form of a train with "Bombay - Margao" emblazoned upon the side. Our tickets were for 10:00 (ish). A train stood in front of us. It was 10:00 (ish). Our destination was clearly written on the panel of the sleeper.
When we woke up in Margao to the conductor saying "end of the line" we realized 1. double check your tickets and 2. do it again is real important. It then made sense why we could snooze out on the train and why there was nobody in our compartment, let alone the train at all.

So, 600 rupees and 6 hours later, we boarded the overnight bus to Bombay from Margao, with some cashew nuts, some mango paste, and a handful each of fresh Lesson (salted) to tide us over for our 14 hour ride. Luckily we were in the front of the bus, right next to the driver, who was trying desperately to walk it out via the bus' airhorn.

Walk it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozXTu8tHZ18

1 Comments:

Blogger Dook Platypus said...

thanks for updating this so often.

12:00 AM  

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