Discovery

I am in Lahore. Went on a business trip on Saturday. As I work for not-for-profit organization, we travel on our trips by train.

I’ve traveled on Pakistani trains before, in autumn last year. The weather was dry and hot, yet it got really cold at night. Anyways, it was the first train trip, all my team mates traveled with me that time, we talked and laughed, so little ‘train challenges’ didn’t bother me much.

This time I had a closer look at the train.

I was with Mariam, my Pakistani team mate. We couldn’t get tickets for ladies compartment (here there is an issue of women and men sitting on one side of the room, traveling together etc.), so we stayed in mixed one. With really big guys who could hardly climb to the shelves upstairs. Luckily, they didn’t talk to us, just amongst themselves, holding hands and sleeping on each others’ lap from time to time (normal thing to do for guys over here, and they are not gay).

Economy class train has 6 sleeping places in each compartment and 2 sitting places on the side. Similar to Russian economy class (platskart), but Pakistani one has 2 more sleeping shelves. I took the middle one, Mariam - the one downstairs.

It was 5pm, we were moving for 1 hour already and I badly wanted tea with milk. Sometimes there are those guys with termoses pass by passengers and offer tea. So I took a cup from one of those. Tea was alright, yet has 2 black hair parts on the side of the cup. A bit weird. I asked for another cup, this one seemed clean.

I took time to read a book. “Ice-Candy Man” is a very nice one. It’s written by a Pakistani writer, and is about partition times from a perspective of a 8-years old child.

It got dark, I couldn’t read any more, so Mariam and I started to chat: her bad memory, what we learned during this year, ideal future job, democracy in Pakistan. I like talking to Mariam. She is very clever, passionate and always has an interesting perspective on things. She is one of those people with whom it’s a big luck to travel with. I would definitely go with her for 10 days camping. Once again, I thanked God that we are working in one team.
Eventually we became hungry. In fact, I became hungry - Mariam doesn’t it much. She can easily survive on chips. Mariam’d taken 2 sandwiches for me before the trip. I ate one right away. We put the other one on the table near a window.

When it was time to sleep, Mariam told me: “We should be prepared not to see our food in the morning”.

I: “How come?!”

Mariam: “Well, they might take it from the table”

I: “Who?!”

Mariam: “People who pass by the train when it stops at a station. Usual thing”
Sandwich was really nice, so it was not easy for me to accept the fact that I will not have breakfast in the morning.

I went to the washroom. It had no lock and no water - completely useless :) I went back to my bed.

Fact about the beds in economy class. They do not have any bedsheets. No pillows. Nothing except of a wooden thing where people are supposed to lye on. Knowing this, I took a pillow and bedsheets from home with me. Mariam did the same. We will also sleep in the same clothes which we are wearing right now. Mariam told me to cover my head and full body with a bedsheet. Lots of men around.

Going to sleep, I thanked myself for taking a pillow. And Amelia, my house mate, for buying this pillow for me earlier. It is really nice.

I woke up in the middle of the night. Moved a little on the “bed”. Window is opened. I looked at the table and didn’t see the food. It was just not there. I moved back, and - suddenly - pillow flew away! Oh no. The wind took it out of my hand and threw outside the train.
I was sleeping on my bag (which was really hard) and then on hands. Woke up at 6am, checked the table and saw the food under it. I thanked God that I will have breakfast and Mariam for protecting it under the table.

I ordered 2 cups of tea and continued with Ice Candy Man. Time passed quickly till we arrived to Lahore.

Having reached railway station, we went to buy tickets back to Karachi.

Mariam to a ticket officer: “I made a reservation for tickets, how can we get them”

Officer, looking at me and then back to Mariam: “Is she British?”

Mariam: “No”

Officer: “Is she Pakistani? Where is she from?”

Mariam (to me, leaving the counter in search for another ticket window): “Asshole”.

I experienced this many times. Pakistanis forget about the topic of conversation when they see foreign white girl.

There are people at the railway station who help to carry bags. They carry bags on their heads. 2-3 huge bags on the head - it looks extremely painful. We didn’t use the help of these guys this time, but I remembered how I first saw them during train trip in autumn. I was shocked.

We took a taxi to the house where we’d stay. Laura (nice blond Americal girl wearing Pakistani kurta, born in Germany and coming from The Netherlands 1 month ago) opened the door for us. I asked to show me the bathroom to take a shower. I have never seen so much dust on my body before.

Shower and 3 glasses of water did a trick. Life has become much better, and we headed for lunch. I thanked God that He gave me such an experience of Pakistani train. Its nice to have it once in a lifetime. Inshallah next time I will go by plane :-)