From the Sleeper Train to Pathankot to Dharamshala

I went to India and Nepal for the first time on a Buddhist pilgrimage led by Shantum Seth in 2007. The following is from my 2008 trip, about a year later.

It’s Saturday, on the train, about 7:20 am. Shantum said the train’s running a bit late and we should arrive around eight. Hey, it rhymes.

Restrooms on Indian trains, as I learned last year, are… simple. The toilet is basically a hole in the floor of the train. You can look down and see the train tracks.

I awoke in the middle of the night desperately needing to pee, but I was reluctant to head for the toilet because a) someone had said it’s disgusting shortly after we climbed aboard, b) I didn’t want to do it while the train was moving and drop a roll of paper down onto the tracks like last year, and c) I didn’t want to pee on my pants. Mostly it was the comment about the disgusting toilet. I decided to at least wait until the train has stopped and seems to be staying that way for a few minutes. It was a long wait.

I didn’t find the restroom any more disgusting than last year’s train toilet.

Even after that, I had trouble falling back to sleep and lay watching out the window and mindfully breathing. Derelict buildings built right up against each other, like rowhouses, looked like a ghost town without any…