The long road to Agra...

AIESEC's International Conference this year was to be held at Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. People from all over the world (including Singaporeans) gathered to hold fairs, meetings and conferences.

I have been away from home for some months now. The promise of seeing some Singaporean faces at Agra was reason enough for me to take some time off, despite a 22 hour train ride (each way) and a 2350 rs train ticket (ouch, I'm still hurting).

Max and Alvaro elected to stay home and watch HBO, and so on Thursday 1100 hrs, Beyhan and I boarded a train at Howrah station along with a few Indian AIESECers. Lucky for us, we were on a 2nd class air-conditioned sleeper train. The Indians elected to stay in a non-airconditioned cabin, but how they survived the 22 hr trip, I will never know.

The journey was for most part long and uneventful. We spent great amounts of time sleeping, chatting (sometimes with the passengers, those who could speak reasonable English) and watching the countryside go by. Occasionally we WOULD see something interesting (Elephants, towns, farmers and something else....)

For the first 4 or 5 hours on Friday morning, I was absolutely fascinated by the view from my compartment window. The window was made of scratched yellowed plastic, a light drizzle partially obscured the countryside occasionally like an old "noir" film. "The Legends of the Fall theme" issuing from my Zen Touch completed the romantic feel perfectly.

Beyhan kept his head buried in his Delphi 6 technical reference. He wouldn't know romance if it came up to him and bit him on his arse. ;p.

Word of advice to anyone on a long train ride in India: Bring your own food. There are no complimentary meals on board and while porters hop on board every stop to sell food and drinks. These are really fairly expensive and tastes like crap. To top it off, none of the food sold has any nutritional value whatsoever.

The highlight of our train trip to Agra happened on Saturday evening.

National Geographic time!

I always knew Indian men were more casual about bodily contact than any other races. Back in Singapore, it wasn't uncommon for two men to walk around holding hands. In India, the butt-squeezing was a bit of a shock...but I adjusted eventually, by putting my arse carefully against any wall I could find. What we saw on the train takes the cake and wins the jackpot.

A large family boarded the train and were seated in several compartments near ours. Since they wanted to take their meals together as a family in one compartment, seating arrangements were fairly cramped.

Some people had to shared a seat. Guy A got comfortable and treated Guy B like some kind of human chair. B had his legs wide open and A was some kind of sqooshed up against B's groin. Ok, so this was a little wierd, but still acceptable.

The family was having a nice time chatting merrily and laughing. B reached out and very casually put his hands into A's side pockets, working towards his groin area.

Man...

We couldn't actually believe what we were seeing, and yet noone was even in the slightest way disturbed by the scene that was unfolding in front of us. I will give some allowances for differences in culture and all, but if ANYONE EVER tries that, he is going to eat my knuckles. That night, me and Beyhan slept with our backs to the wall. ;))

Ibneh...they're ALL Ibneh....