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Saturday, December 21st - Quetta to Rawalpindi (train)
This being our day to travel, the five of us pack in the morning right after breakfast and leave the Boys and Girls Club by check out time at 10 am. We do last minute grocery shopping for the long train ride and last minute trips to the pharmacy to buy tooth paste and other small items.
By noon we are finished and waiting to board our train at the railway station, which we are allowed to do at 12:30, after we have made sure our bicycles are being loaded carefully onto the baggage car. We find our seats that have been pre-assigned to us yesterday and try to settle in comfortably for the duration of the trip.
That isn’t possible however. The train is way too crowded. Buying a second class ticket in Pakistan does assure one of a seat but there might be someone squeezed in between your knees on the floor and another leaning on your outer thigh, which there are on this trip. It is no different for the others in our group. The aisles fill up too, with over-sized duffel bags and sacks of agricultural products. It seems that many people on this train are moving don’t to the valley for winter, and taking everything with them including goods to sell in the markets to pay their way. Who would deny them? But it still feels a bit like insanity. If I do want to make it to the washroom anytime in the coming few hours, it will requiring actually stepping on many people and climbing over bales of hay, etc. One doesn’t have to travel on bicycle here to have an adventure. You could even say the train is more challenging.
The train is instantly stuffy and filled with a thousand smells, which when I relax and sink into it, not minding the people on the floor leaning and snuggling up against me, I soak and try to be part of. Noise and smells have to be part of a crowded Asian urban experience. The train rattles, shakes and sways as it twists through the mountain passes on its way downhill towards the Indus Valley.
My stomach is rumbling like the train. I hope I am not going to be sick again, like I was on the train from Tabriz to Tehran. There is a chance I won't be. My insides are not sour inside this time, just noisy. Every few minutes I let out a rather pungent fart, which I would normally try to smother in the seat cushion by keeping my legs together, but today I have someone nestled between my legs on the floor in front of me, his head about a foot from my asshole. He doesn't react. Perhaps it's just another of the many smells around him.
The brown, naked hills roll by as we follow the Bolan River south-east. Our first stop is in the town of Mach. It is a brief stop to allow a few more passengers crowd into the already-full train. Another one squeezes onto the floor beside me. We imagine we are a bunch of kittens all cuddled together, those we are beginning to smell like sardines. Thankfully it's not hot out.
The train slides into the small city of Sibbi about an hour out of Quetta. The mountains have given way to rolling hills here. The city is about the size of Dalbandin with lots of mud brick construction. This is still Baluchistan. The station platform is sprinkled with kiosks and roving vendors that sell their wares at the windows of the train. Having the seat by the window, I act as the exchange agent, taking money from those seated on the floor to pay for food that I take from the vendors and pass back to them. One man needs to get out. As the aisles to the door are nearly impossible to reach, he climbs over me to get out the window. He plants his knee into my abdomen, causing another embarrassing expulsion of gas, as the vendors help him through the window. He walks to the end of the train, pulls up his robe and squats to take a shit over the edge of the platform. Then, without wiping himself, he climbs back through the window and over my stomach.
Vincent is sitting behind me and having as much fun as I am. Coen is seated across the way and Kate and Stephen are behind him, on the other side of the people and piles of goods in the aisles. The station platform is on my side so they have enjoyed the entertainment of watching other passengers climb over us. Seeing Stephen and Kate seated together, I am thinking she has perhaps wizened up and knows that Stephen needs to sit beside her for her own protection.
The train continues down through Jacobabad and Shikarpur to the Indus River, and then bends north east towards Lahore once we cross the river. Kate, Stephen and Coen have several turns having passengers climbing over them, and Vincent and I have it happen again and again too. Some the agricultural products are off-loaded as we follow the valley upstream so the aisles are a bit less crowded, bit it is never comfortable.
I expected the Indus Valley to be lush and green but it does not seem well managed. It is warmer down in the valley, bordering on hot in the peak of the day, but there are many empty, untilled fields, baked hard and without vegetation that look like they have not been used for years. As we roll on towards Lahore, the daylight fades and our view of the river is gone.
The trip is gruelingly long. It is late in the evening by the time we reach Lahore. We are almost an hour in the station before the train turns north-west to climb up to Rawalpindi. I need to use the toilet by this time. I climb over the passengers around me, taking great care not to step on them. At points, I need to step on their packages and bundles which are stacked high in the aisles. It takes me ten minutes to reach the washroom in the next car, and when I do I have to climb over the goods stacked in front of it to drop inside to use it. It is a struggle to climb back out again, but it is worth it.
The aisles in the next car are filled with people standing. I am in no hurry to get to rush back to my seat as I have been sitting too long. I stand by an older, distinguished man with a short beard for a bit. He asks me if I am from the United States. I say no, that I am from Canada. 'The same thing,' he comments in an off-handed manner. That's a bit offensive to me so I retort, 'Yes, just like being from India or Pakistan is the same thing.' 'Oh,' he gasps, quite horrified, 'you must never say such a thing!' 'Well then," I respond, 'you must never say that being from Canada or the US is the same thing.' He laughs and apologizes for his mistake.
We go on to talk about other things then fall into silence. I am in a spiritual mood, thinking of Christmas and missing my family. I start softly humming 'Amazing Grace' to myself and he turns to me again, asking me what that beautiful song is. I explain it is a Christian hymn and he seems truly disappointed. I want to tell him I am not a Christian and that the message is for anyone who is spiritually inspired, but he is turned off because I said "Christian" and is no longer listening to me. I remember a funny line from the movie "My Beautiful Launderette", where one Pakistani character says the problem with Pakistan is that it has been sodomized by religion.
I make my way back to my second class seat and coax out the third class passenger who has been warming it for me while I was gone. Coen and the others have their eyes closed. I close mine too and try to get some sleep as the train slowly crawls uphill towards Rawalpindi.
PHOTO 1: Quetta railway station
PHOTO 2: near the town of Mach, leaving the hills
PHOTO 3: outside Sibbi village
PHOTO 4: the Indus River Valley
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