Bus, Tamer, and I all got the upper berth (think of it as the top bunk) at the end of sleeper car number 8. About a hour into the journey, Tamer noticed that there was a man hanging on the outside of the door leading into the car. Apparently he wasn't the only one that noticed, for it wasn't long before a nun in grey habit led two soldiers to the sight.
The soldiers opened the door and with the aid of another man on the train, attempted to pull the guy in. However, he was refusing to let go of the bar outside the door and they were having a hard time getting him into the car itself. I didn't understand why the guy was fighting them, but I quickly understood why.
Once they pulled him in, the two military officers and the man who had helped them began to slap, hit, kick, and stomp on the guy who was on the floor at this point. They even took turns whipping him with a bamboo stick.
Then they began throwing water on him and finally let up. They turned away the nuns that tried to intervene, and smiled at us since we were right there less than 10 feet away and could feel the blows being landed. They kept saying, "it's ok, go to sleep, it's ok."
Then later on, they all started interacting with the guy and being more patient with him. He was obviously either mentally ill or under the influence of something, I think the latter. One of the soldiers gingerly touched his face, which was now swelling up, and gestured that he was holding onto the bar and how he was refusing to let go. Another soldier helped to straighten up his shirt and fix his hair.
It was just bizarre to see them beating this man and then being gentle with him. Almost redemptive, I suppose. Bus said that in many countries, whippings are a form of positive discipline.
We had an interesting taxi ride from the train station to our hotel.
Following Smitha's advice, we decided to stay at the Panjwall Lodge of Hotel Nadini. Her cousin explained where it was at and how to get there, so we took off after giving instructions to the drivers. The drivers suddenly claimed not to know where it was at, and took us to a different hotel, the Mahkil Regency or something like that. When we went in with them to check the price, it was something like 1300 rupees per person per night. It was obvious the drivers knew the clerk and were working for a commission. We piled back into the taxi and again instructed them to take us to the hotel that we originally wanted.
They pulled up tò a different hotel, blatantly ignoring our request. Bus refused to get out of the taxi, so we all stayed in, and I told them, "Listen! We want OUR hotel, not your hotel, OUR hotel!"
They agreed and drove us around some more, we were all quite annoyed at this point. They kept slowing down in front of different hotels, so finally Tamer was like just drop is off at the boot store and we will find it ourselves.
The drivers then, miracles of all miracles, "found the hotel". So, we all got out and paid 50 rupees each, the drivers tried to say that it was more money due to driving us around to different hotels. I laughed at the nerve and told them that we did not ask them to do so, so that was their fault for doing that!
After forcing them to take the 200 rupees we'd only pay or leave it, Wyatte said he saw them laughing when we walked off as if to say, "Darn, it didn't work!"
Fortunately, that type of experience has not been common during our trip this far.
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1 comments:
*Laughing* I can't believe the taxi driver did that to you EXACT WAY the Thai taxi driver did to Abi and me. We asked the driver to take us to a seafood restaurant. He took us to a nicest, fancy seafood restaurant. Abi and I were excited at first because we thought it had still reasonable price. We looked at the menu and got puzzled, and we finally realized that we were in the EXPENSIVE restaurant. Of course... what did we do? Abiodun and Roxann got up and left. The driver stayed there and WAITED. He asked us what happened, and we had to gesture that it is too expensive. He said he will take us other place, and I didn't know why we agreed to go with him. Again, it was expensive but it was little cheaper than other restaurant. I was sooooo pissed off. Abi was starved, and she just went ahead entering that place. Guess third world countries taxi world has SAME strategy. *Shaking my head* I learned my lesson seriously.
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