vaga #5/4 .. traka traka traka ...

Part IV

The British put trains throughout their colonies, great contributions and in Sri Lanka was part of them, the photo below is the common symbol of the train, and it is old, it is exactly what there is, but without smoke.

I start with stories of trains graphing their images of those few that are remaining, I have seen the construction of a Chinese train track that connects China with Laos, the designs of its tunnels, bridges, embankments with ultramodern engineering, producing a strong contrast with the precariousness from Laos, shocking, I imagine that the first trains the colony were the same in their time. China, today, implants a new type of colonialism in many parts of Africa and Asia,  that would  take a long time to discuss.

In the old locomotives the driver looked through a small window on the side, with never a complete view of the track and on these tracks the cows are a permanent part of the landscape.

Old-fashioned, white uniforms, cardboard tickets, phone calls from station to station to find out when the train left. Outside the cities the tracks are one-way tracks and work by phone, between station to station and by law, all the trains are late, so there is no schedule for those who use the tracks or when they pass through the many tunnels and bridges, sometimes you have to wait 40 minutes between station and station.

Here is my first train experience in my entire wander, always in Sri Lanka. 

There was only second and third class for that section, the cashier tells me; - Give me second, please- . Once on the train I come to realise from the classic train card that the price was 180 rupees, that is, the ticket seller paid an extra salary, since he sold it to me at 240 rupees,    !! it won't happen to me again !!  later I learned that it is an institutionalised procedure with tourists, there are so many stations that there is no price information ....... first lesson ........... second lesson ... ... If one is ignorant and believed that because it is Colombo, the capital, it is the starting point of the trains as in all parts of the world, they depart from the capital, here  Nope! They pass by, it is one more stop, which means that they are already full ...... When the train arrived with its corresponding delay and the mass of people who are preparing to board it, I asked myself; where is the second class? … .. forget it, just get on. .... obviously, "Murphy's law" I fell in third, although all the cars were equally packed, nothing was understood by the crowd, !!!! puffff !!!! . .. inside and the corridor will be the least of it .... standing up for a couple of hours, and squeezed as tightly as possible, worse still, sticky, shoulder to shoulder with humidity .... it is not minor !!!! ! 

After 15 minutes of traka traka traka of the noise and permanently swaying, the girl sticking to me with her Indu face, asked me where I am from ... me, I give up, and I just say South America, Chile is so tiny that nobody knows, no, I do not give more explanations especially in these circumstances ...   Chile, I said dryly. Answer; a smile ..... no idea where it is ........ but still with a nice smile ..... I clarify, here are 3 official languages; Sinhala, Tamil and English which is not spoken between them since it was implemented by the English colony and the three languages ​​always appear on each sign even if it is small, or never seen. I have been fascinated with the writings of each country, the symbols are so diverse, one crosses a border and is in another world, only 2 countries in the wanderings have Latin letters, Vietnam and Indonesia which one can spell and write down an address, the rest get lost in the wonderful squiggle of curves and stripes with lots of butterflies above and below each letter, and totally useless for one. I'll report it accordingly. 

I return to the subject, she spoke perfect English and she kept going with  the conversation and always with her cute smile, I was more concerned about taking care of my backpack and how to survive the little ride in  traka traka traka . She showed me her son, of about 3 years old, who was standing between the seats looking out the window. Short story, at 30 minutes, he asked me for a selfie of the two of us, in those cases I take out my phone and I do it more out of sympathy for the other, rather than for me, so we both took out our  phones in unison in a constant back and forth, more squished. Now for a parenthesis .... waiting on the platform I started to smoke, a street vendor looked at me with a nice face, obviously, and I always do it, I offered him a cigarette ..... that always brings out the most wonderful smiles. Whether they smoke or not… For my brother. .. The act opens the door to the conversation, after a while he took out a mandarin from his wicker basket, it was what he was selling, he opened it and gave it to me, I was happy, and luckily I took it just before he put a spicy red powder on top .... pufff saved, because I would have to eat it yes or yes. This vendor gets on the train to sell them ..... I reiterate the corridor full of human beings where street vendors pass with skilful gymnastic manoeuvres and one is more squashed  when they pass behind you, you have to raise a leg wherever you can,  the metal of the seats crush into your tummy, after a while the blind people pass by, and later when the train is emptier the deformed pass by. What impressed me was more than half of the people gave them money, so I quickly did too, knowing that my wallet had just come out of the ATM, that is, full, I could not ignore that, I was the only foreigner in the carriage, and I was concerned they noticed that the wallet was bulging. At twenty minutes from   traka traka traka It turns out that the mandarin seller saw me from afar, from the other car, his smile from side to side he flapped his hands at me when he saw me, he even blew kisses, my whole car found out about such manifestations, the after circus contortion manoeuvres.  he arrived where he was, spoke loudly in a language that was not English, I deduced from the looks with welcoming smiles that I received, that he told them that I offered him a cigarette ... the magic of the cig..... The girl wrote her name, Kumudu, on my phone, and then she wrote mine on hers ... ... easier to be sticky  with an acquaintance with a name and a phone number to one who did not. Luckily my sense of smell is poor, and I appreciate it in situations of human compaction added to a humidity of 95%. I asked Kumudu to let me know when to get off, it turned out that she got off earlier, she quickly started looking among the passengers for an acquaintance, she found an old lady, she beckoned to her and half shouted explained to her, she told me - that person will tell you where to get off- Hugs with Kumudu and promises to have lunch at her family's house when I return to Colombo, she lives an hour by train from the city. Then the train began to empty and the first seat that was vacated, I saw it was so far away that I had made no illusions, however, the passengers were beckoning me to take it, a collective agreement, silent and spontaneous, I was happy to sit down after almost two hours of standing, I had to push right and left to get there. They wouldn't let anyone else sit there. What can I say ?…. The good references of the street vendor that he made previously were gathered, plus the chat and photos with Kumudu which everyone had observed They see you travelling alone, old in their concepts, grey-haired with braces at that time, with a non-native English like theirs, they see one as helpless, half spaced out, asking how much further I still have to go or how many more stations I have left ……. They do not see me stuck to the phone with the Google Maps, (one for not knowing how to use it and my old school of the "ask" always valid, now I have improved with Google Maps, only in emergencies, I still like to develop my instincts, and also to find adventure, what ever it may be), I caused a curiosity in them, and they wanted to help, they even want to protect you., take care of you, those things I felt many times. I know this doesn’t happen when you travel with someone else. That made me feel welcome grateful, and close to them, less than an outsider. Without any threat from them.

With Kumudu, no, we would not see each other again, by December when I passed through Colombo, she was in the middle of exams, she is studying nursing, however, we contacted each other by WhatsApp she's always sending me photos of her family.

I wondered, in the rush of that day,   what am I doing here? Because not being in the apartment of Las Condes, Santiago  with my meals, routines, dentist in Integramédica, my wines of the "weekend" with friends ..... What am I doing   here.........? Well, I quickly reply to myself; I live intensely, I know the world, its people, its rites, its clothes, its looks, its colours, so many and so diverse. Knowing about those festivities where  they spend their lives in them, the joy, the simplicity, the generosity with the minimum, proud of their races. I was thinking of Chile, which is a bubble and I would dare to say one of the few in the world. A bubble, which nobody passes through, it is not a corridor of nothing, it is a dead-end street. In the last two decades and a little more, tourists have arrived in very low numbers compared to other countries (by the way, very expensive), mainly Europeans. In the world and I repeat in the world Chinese tourists pass in tremendous hordes, Europeans, Americans, Canadians, Australians, Arabs, Asians, Japanese, Russians etc…. all circulate permanently. Here, in Asia they speak their mother tongue and/or other dialects of their regions, plus the official language of the country, and they are soon to learn to speak English, because they are surrounded and bombarded by tourists year around being a great source of work and everything is part of a gear that comes for many years, exchange of races, languages, beliefs, foods, cultures, stories that are being exchanged ....... fascinating for me ..... the world outside the bubble. So I will continue in the traka traka traka of  life. 

The English, in addition to contributing with the trains, made a great felling of native forests to plant tea, the “Ceylon tea”, as the island was previously called. There is a train in the south of the island called "route of tea". The journey is wonderful, gentle and rough hills at the same time, other mounds that are like bowls of ice cream glasses superimposed on the landscape. The tea is grown on farms. The vast majority are women who harvest it, fill a sack and then take it to a collection centre to weigh it, the men carry two sacks, and as always this type of work is poorly paid. 

There is a train for foreigners near the tea area and that runs through a beautiful landscape between hundreds of conical hills, it is worth 4 times more than the normal price, it only stops at 3 stations, with air conditioning and has numbered seats. I took it because I wanted to go to a national park because it suited me, it was the first stop, when I got to my station the train stopped on the track and not on the platform, to get off you had to jump, I asked again and again and yes, there is no other way apart from jumping, I couldn't believe it hahaha , only a young Dutch couple got off, (whenever I addressed the others they are always young, because the true "golden age" I don't come across in things of minimal adventures, hahaha) and me. The jump was about 1.80 meters high with an uneven floor, there is no other way, I threw my backpack, the Dutch couple caught it, inside was the computer, and then my person, I had the whole train looking out the window to see me jump, I landed perfectly, with nothing broken, I even got a round of applause and waves from the passengers.

In the town Ela, in the south, my house was unknowingly 5 meters from the train track, I woke up with a start, I thought it was an earthquake, due to the tremendous shaking with a harsh noise, the whole house shook, until I made out the traka traka traka and the whistle ……. What an awakening !! At 6 am, with my coffee on the terrace, the second passed by , but I had already assimilated it. In this town is a high-rise curved bridge, about a hundred years old and is renowned for its engineering work. Mandatory walk, you walk along the rails for about 45 minutes, the idea is to be there when the train passes. The spectators were all very young !!! again !!!. Ela, a town of about 5 streets between the mountains, is an enclave of young tourists where marijuana is part of the menu, places of meditation, yoga and vegetarian food. I had not walked on rails for so long and felt a few nerves when crossing the tunnel of a narrow track (cover photo). Quite impressive and beautiful the show, but the train was an hour late

As this chapter is about transportation, I included buses, those that are in remote places on the island where the train does not arrive, and here you pay on the bus, there is no written rate, I fought the price, because I saw the others had paid 20 rupees for the same journey and I was charged 80, their answer; ah is that I thought, I was paying for someone else , so 40, they gave me back the difference of 20 Rupees when I got off and when you ask for the change they do not give you anything …… .. anger and rage thank goodness the ticket was extremely cheap …… When I got off I had to take another bus for Ela. At the station where I  changed buses, there was nothing written in English, like all the remote places in the centre they are very poor, they only speak their dialect, the names of the buses are in their language, and it was impossible to guess which was mine, I with my constant spaced out face, a local woman recognised such a clueless face, she was in her 40s and looked 60, with two smiling teeth, she approached me and tried to ask me if I was going to Ela, only using gestures, she said  that I should follow her, she deposited me on the right bus, seated, and she coordinated my payment with the right payment, corresponding with the driver, she hinted that she would have another one later, I smiled and thanked  her. The funny thing was, once in Ela, I was eating something and looking at the street, a bus stopped, and she was right at the window, smiling at me again and saying goodbye.

Curiosities of the buses, many are not painted on the outside, but inside there are  great drawings and some are very good, it is like a competition of who has the most beautiful and creative drawings, it is like the boats that make their own colourful designs. Regarding the colour and design, the other thing that caught my attention were the men's sarongs, they were of beautiful, modern designs, a couple of colourful lines, well combined, the sensation of sensitivity for visual pleasure and modern, totally different from the ones. other countries in the area in terms of aesthetics ,no traditional patterns. Another curiosity, was the first seats of the buses are for the clergyman, nobody sits there, only the monks, they do not pay, however, a collection is made on the bus and between everyone they pay for their tickets, at that moment  there were three monks I felt I should contribute, I was the only tourist on that 5-hour journey, when trying to spend some money they told me that I don't need to. At one point the bus stopped nowhere in the middle of the road, it was not like they do every two hours to go to the bathroom and eat, here in nowhere, the driver got off to pray, in a Hindu chapel or Buddhist because here everyone mixes the iconographies, and he prayed for about five minutes, you can see in the photo below from my window that does not open very much and with its glass they are how they look, I mean, you can hardly see it. 

the windshields of the buses are the real altars, with images of Buddha and/or the image of Ganesha. (the elephant seated) Hindu and others, jasmine flowers, as in Myanmar, hanging rosaries, etc. The television on the bus is only turned on to listen to very long, monotonous sermons by monks. These sermons that they take very seriously and on a daily basis everywhere; houses, hotels, businesses all with the television on and along with a daily routine of complex and long blessing rites starting in the morning. Other photos of things that one comes across on the street; herding buffalo with motorcycles, many altars, fruit shops among so many curiosities.

The cows  are sacred in Hinduism and that is why they walk around as they please, I have even run into them on a road at dawn still dark and in a curve, braking, no honking to move them, the driver patiently waited until they decided to leave. I have asked  about the sacred cows, and they have not given me the reason, they do not know it, they are just sacred. One day in a Hindu temple in Java, Indonesia, the students of a school, offered to give a free tour as a school assignment to practice English, there I found out that an image in the temple was of a buffalo that represented transportation to "heaven ”. Now this is the fruit of my own imagination, and it may not have anything to do with it, but since I need a reason for the cows, I transferred it to the mythology of transport to a spiritual state, in much of India there are no buffaloes, and would cows be the transport? Or, it is said, that the fact of giving milk is the mother of nature, and  they are venerated for that, everything is very ambiguous, however the sacred is strongly maintained, in India by law they do not touch cows, by law. 

VISUAL TRIBUTE TO THE TRAINS

The rails of life: we are not always given a single rail in life that is linear, many times pieces of rails cross us in any direction for long or short times, sometimes we do not know where they take us and one improvises the route or wanting to return to the original rail, others never manage to get on any for long and go from one jumping to another.