This Would NEVER Happen Back Home

After missing the lunch time train to Aktau; apparently it’s my responsibility to know that the train comes to the station one hour before it says so on the ticket; I catch the midnight train.

Since I’m riding plaskart (shared wagon with no assigned seats), when the train pulls up, a mob forms at both doors to my wagon. One of the guards selectively lets people onto the train with their bags, and tells others to go away, I’m in the group that has to go away and so end up joining the group at the other door where we all take turns to push and shove our way on.

I walk down the carriage to find that every bunk either has someone sleeping on it, or is being saved for someone with another person’s luggage. Likewise with every seat. Soon I’m at the very end of the wagon.

People are still pushing and shoving around me, so I just stand there and wait until someone finally moves over so I can settle into the worst seat on the entire train. The spot right next to the door for the toilet and smoking area.

It’s a fun game playing contortionist in order to get some sleep, any time I stretch out in my sleep, I’m woken up by someone opening the door , into my kneecap.

At a quiet point in the middle of the night, when everyone is too tired to go to the toilet or smoke, I finally pass out for much needed kip.

“F*CKING, SH!T, CVNT F*CK” I’m woken up from my sleep by the sound of my own voice, shouting loud enough to wake the entire wagon. The intense pain in my foot sends shockwaves up my body. I slowly piece together what happened based on the person still lying on my foot and everyone nearby looking up.

The guy lying on the third level bunk rolled over in his sleep and fell off, deciding that my right foot would be his point of impact. Eleven of his family members sitting around us, could not care less, grandma laughs openly.

When the man finally gets up, someone finally translates that he’s sorry. I accept the feigned apology, in too much pain to do anything but nurse my foot. Someone in a rush to get to the bathroom walks past me, opening the door into my throbbing foot, sending new waves of pain into my foot and cursing into my words. Grandma laughs again.

Not a single person offers to swap seats with me. Not a single person asks if I’m ok. Not a single person fetches the guard to apply ice. The pain is too intense to do anything.

I finally contort myself into a position where I can shield my foot from the toilet door and people walking past, but it’s far too uncomfortable to sleep in, not that it matters given the pain I’m feeling.

Everyone very quickly goes back to the sleep that I’ve deprived them of, and I’m left with my pain, my body breaking out in a sweat from it.

It’s still another seven hours until Aktau, I have nothing to do but think. At one point, I almost laugh, thinking about all the stupid things I’ve done (Tibet with no permit, climbing mountains without supplies, hitchhiking on the back of a tractor with a raging yak) and find it funny that the one thing that could cancel my trip is a broken foot thanks to some idiot falling out of bed.

I decide that if this pain continues, the following day I’ll get an X-ray and if it’s broken a cast and call it a premature end to the trip. This hurts far more than the pain in my leg.

The seven hours pass by at snail’s pace, I pass them by counting the number of people that bump into the foot, or simply brush past it as they walk past (I give up after thirty). When it comes time to go to the toilet, I almost pass out in the toilet from the pain.

As the train pulls into the station, the entire family, still oblivious to my pain goes into a frenzy to collect their bags so they can be the first ones out of the train. When one of them bumps into my foot, grandma laughs again. I burn an image of her face into my mind so that should I see her again, I’ll punch her, unashamedly.

The train stops and I manage to get my bag on and slowly limp off the train. It takes twenty minutes to walk from the train, 200m to the taxi stand where I can get a taxi to a hotel.

I reach my bed, drop the bag and pass out from the pain. Six hours later I wake up, force myself to hobble next door to the cafe, eat, hobble back and pass out until the following morning.