My sister and I stood at the little kiosk on the little platform at Patras station. We had our passports, as always, and our Eurail passes and all our money. We knew how to say ‘thank you’ in Greek, but that was it. We had not heard of Patras until we tried finding cheap ways of getting to Greece.
We were seasoned communicators, though, having travelled through Italy with just a few words of Italian. So we went quite confidently to the ticket booth at the station to find out what our options were. We wanted to go to Olympia and to Delphi, but as students on a crazily low budget, we needed to consider carefully.
Armed with clear speech and hopeful-friendly smiles, we asked the gentlemen at the kiosk, “Hello, how do we get to Olympia?”
Utter silence.
My sister and I exchanged glances. Non-communication was not new to us. How could we ask it better?
Before we could figure it out, the gentleman ran out of the booth. Bewildered, we tried to call out to him, but he paid no attention. He appeared on the platform — and he flagged down a train! “Olympia, Olympia!” he cried.
“Olympia!?”
“Olympia!”
“Ticket?”
“Olympia, yes! Olympia!”
“Eurail pass?”
Frantic head shaking that we did not understand.
“What to do? What can we do?” we asked each other. What happened to our careful planning? Delphi or Olympia? How could we choose?
“Olympia!” the gentleman said again, gesturing frantically to the train that had stopped just for us.
We shrugged and boarded. What else could we do?
😀 I can sympathize… I have always had my travel decisions taken out of my hand but in a good way. Like the time I was compared to Amir Khan.
The conference was in Wardha but the trains from Bangalore do not stop at little Wardha Junction. I have 45 minutes left to reach the station from which I would have to travel back by bus to my final destination. A vendor comes with hot vada pav. From the upper berth, I bend down to take a vada pav from him when I realise -for the first time- that the train is stationary. I casually ask the vendor where we are. Wardha! Unscheduled stop!
I think I squealed. The nondescript man opposite me (on the other upper berth) speaks to me for the first time in 20 hours, “kya hua?” and I tell him this is the town I was traveling to. And the train starts to pull out from the station! He jumps off his berth, orders me to climb down, wraps up all my belongings in my bed-sheet, pushes me to the door and tells me to jump off the moving train. Without thinking, I jump down and look around to face him; we watch each other for a second… he is holding in his hands all the things I had on this trip and the train is gathering speed. Then he tosses the bundle to the ground. I look down, even the vada pav survived the fall. I look up, the train is gone and I did not even get to tell him, “thank you”.
I scrabble to pick up my things from the ground and my vada pav vendor comes to help me, proudly telling the crowd that has gathered that he sold me a vada pav 5 minutes back. As I walk away, a man tells the group, “I had seen Amir Khan do this in a movie”. I wish I had asked him which movie.
😀 I remember this story! Travel experiences can be so crazy!
I have a crazier experience from last month… Shall wait for your next travel story. Lets exchange! 🙂
Will write another travel story soon just to read yours!
Hahaha – very nice! I want to go to Olympia too!
Do! It’s worth it!
The train we boarded took us to a place called Pyrgos, which is the point from which we can get trains/ buses to Olympia!