The story of the 14th May on the train.

I woke up again, and it was still very early in the morning and my body told me: go back to sleep, I felt the heaviness of my eyelids over my pupils, but I couldn't get back to sleep. My stomach was calling me, demanding me to eat. I didn't know what I wanted more, to sleep or to eat... The time difference keeps playing with my afternoons and nights, but I digress...

A few days ago my cousin Ernesto and I came back to do an extensive trip around Southeast Asia. This was a trip that we believed to be possible more than two years ago, and on the 23rd January in 2017, that possibility became a reality. Our trip was 4 months long, starting with Japan and finishing in the second most populated country in the world: India.

We arrived in our ultimate destination full of travellers illusions, and I didn't even have a great idea of what India was. In my mind scenes from films played and nothing else. I studied cinema, so I only had references from films or books.

I've learned over the last few years, that one of human being's biggest mistakes is to create expectations about anything and everything without having it in mind that thinking like this, you can sometimes hit a brick wall.

The biggest surprise upon arriving in India for me, was realising that the scenes from the movie that I had in my head, didn't really prove what it meant to be in this country.

At the beginning, like in every country, you arrive a bit apprehensive and nervous as you don't know what's going to happen. You stumble, you get disorientated, you can even start to lose control of the situation. After a few days in India, our spirits and energy were in decline. It was a chaotic place, dirty, rammed with people, noisy, there were animals and poverty living together. It made you want to run away. However, Ernesto and I have lived through situatiove ons that have made us stronger and more tolerant. We lto travel, and India was one of our most awaited destinations.

After more than 20 days in India, we took a train to where would be our final destination of this country: Mumbai, or Bombay as they used to call it a while ago. I waited anxiously to get there and see the Bollywood world and everything that goes with it.

There are different classes when you travel by train, and one of them is the "sleeper train". This is where there are special types of beds where you can sleep all night on the train. It's a modest and cheap class, but it's pretty accessible.

It all started out peacefully, we had travelled for 24 hours. Netto and I were "psychologically" prepared for this adventure, as we had previously taken a train from Varanasi to Jaipur for 22 hours and everything had gone almost perfectly. There were only 5 foreigners and an Indian man in our carriage. The man carried himself splendidly well, he was a total gentleman who was very polite. Nothing could go wrong this time, we thought. But, the truth is that anything is possible in India.

In the first hour of our trip to Mumbai we found ourselves alone in our carriage. And after 3 hours, as usual, the train started to fill up with people.

The carriages of the train were made for 6 people. But for some reason, that I still can't understand, there were more than 6. A carriage that's for 80 people approximately ended up having 160 or even more people on it. Increasing this number even further were the vendors that jump on and off the train, who actually end up saving you from hunger at the end of the day.

The hours passed by, and the first thing that started to irritate us was the constant chucking rubbish out of the train windows. India is an extremely polluted country. However, to see how people can do this without feeling any guilt, filled us with anger because it's something that they all do and honestly, at the time you can't really do anything. You can't do anything but maintain your calmness and keep your rubbish in a bag for the whole trip.

The "sleeper train" obviously doesn't have air conditioning, but there are some air vents in the ceiling that help the air "flow". But, the reality of these things is that at 5pm, it's hotter than 40 degrees and the only thing that runs through there, is a smell of "hell".

From the evening to the night, the train stopped for a few minutes because of a change of route. Because of this the carriage was in total chaos. There were children crying, women shouting, some sat on top of one another, heated arguments, direct glares and 2 Mexicans in the middle of this labyrinth without any way to escape. I got really tired, and I turned up my music in my headphones so I couldn't hear anything else, but it wasn't enough. I was so annoyed because of a little Indian girl who was invading my personal space. The girl was with her mum and her little sister who was about 3 years old.

Trying to reduce our stress a little bit I said to Ernesto: 'That girl is quite white isn't she? ', referring to the little sister, 'I think they've stolen her', and we laughed. The Indians have much darker skin in comparison with the majority of Asian countries, which is why it's not very common to see an Indian with such pale skin. And strangely, they have a strange obsession with white skin.

However, in situations like these nothing was sufficient, and we were exhausted. When night fell, I decided to go to sleep. I had already been sat down for a while and my legs were begging me to stretch out.

When someone went to sleep, it meant that everyone who was sitting down had to move and each go to their bed, which meant that having seats was impossible. We had the middle bed and the one below it, and my cousin was already coming over to say something: ' take the middle bed because if you go on the one below, they're going to start sitting on your legs and you're already desperate... so I did...

With the noise, heat and the lights it was almost impossible to fall asleep, even so, it didn't take me long to do so. I lost track of time, but when I woke up, it was still dark, very dark. Something had hit my leg, and that was the reason I woke up.

A woman was saying: "sorry, sorry", and it turned out it was her massive bag that had fallen on my leg. The noise was unbearable. I can perfectly remember the scene when I turned myself over and I saw the "anthill" on the floor. Old and young people lying down on the floor between suitcases and rubbish. It was impossible to walk through there. I also remember a man and his baby that were on the bed below, in front of Ernesto's. They were lying across half of his bed, because some other stranger had invaded the other half of theirs.

I felt very drowsy and hot, my thoughts were in disarray. I couldn't stop thinking that it was a hallucination, from delirium. Unfortunately, it was all real.

After a few hours, you could only hear the noise of the old iron tracks of the train, and the hot wind that flowed through the windows was so strong that it drowned out the sound of the fans on the ceiling. It seemed like the darkness was over for the moment along with the commotion. For a few seconds I felt calm, until I fell asleep again.

I woke up at sunrise and everyone had started to move very quickly and the vendors appeared again. If you didn't buy a chai tea for 10 Indian rupees on the train, then you haven't been on an Indian sleeper train.

I could start to make out a city through the windows, and it was still asleep. I asked a girl if she was from Mumbai, and she said yes. I then tried to wake my cousin up as he was in a very deep sleep. Ernesto always slept so deeply, more than anyone in the world. I'm sure that he never heard anything.

When we finally got to sit down again, he told me very convincingly: 'I'm never going to come back to India. These words told me everything I needed to know. I remember his look of angst and desperation. He told me that all night people were pushing him, shouting at him and sitting on top of his legs. He'd had a much worse time than me, I thought.

We finally arrived in Mumbai, and we found ourselves completely devastated and disappointed at this enormous country. He told me that the only thing that kept him going was that the trip would end in a few days and we could go back to Mexico.

At the end of everything, life compensated our bad times. Mumbai turned out to be a completely different city. The streets and buildings were modernised, with that Bollywood air and a clear British influence. This made it completely different to whatever place we'd seen before. They say in Mexico that life is better by the sea, and it's not that the sea in Mumbai was particularly pretty, but it definitely gives a different colour to the city.

On the last day in Mumbai, I left that amazing opportunity I had to travel around Asia and I contemplated the trip on the sea shore. I said goodbye to that last warm moment at sunset, surrounded by crowds of people, and I closed my eyes in that far-fetched and contrasting country, with its enormous sun hiding behind the buildings of Mumbai. It painted the clouds a strong, vibrant orange, as strong as the beating of my heart during those moments. As strong as my desires once were to visit this continent that I yearned for, and with the same vigour as my desires to continue travelling.

They say that one trip can change your life, but I prefer to say "it transforms you". One day, a good friend of ours in Jaipur told us: "Travelling is the best lesson in life". Now more than ever, I feel like I'll never be the same again. I have a great feeling of wellbeing that I never want to end.

This trip definitely changed me, but in truth what transformed me was that episode in the train carriage because although the lesson seemed almost invisible, I learnt a lot in 24 hours. I didn't end up realising this until the day after when I spoke to my sister, and she was complaining so much about how bad her bus trip back to our home town was, and I asked her sarcastically: "Did you have air conditioning? " And she replied: "Yeah, and that's why I couldn't sleep, it was too cold. I covered up and I was too hot, I took layers off and I was too cold". I didn't say anything, but I immediately understood everything.

Travelling is a lot more than going to these touristic places and taking pictures every second. Travelling isn't about feeling comfortable the whole time. Getting to know the world is about realising what you have. That event made me see, that going all over the planet will make you more tolerant of people in general, of what you don't like, of what you can't change, with what's different to you.

I discovered that I had to learn to love what I have, what I've gained, to appreciate what had helped me get these even more. I regretted the negative thoughts that I once had about my own country, because you never know when life will put you in unexpected situations, for the ones you're not prepared for. That night I thought a lot about the good things I have and I long for some of the places, people and good times I've experienced.

I constantly listen to my friends' complaints about their every day lives and I can't stop thinking that the things they complain about are getting more and more insignificant because I've learnt that there are things that just aren't worth worrying about in life.

I'm not sure if I'll go back to India, I haven't decided yet, I'm still confused. But I do know, that one day not too far into the future, I will turn back and give thanks to my experience there. I wasn't in the worst situation, because that woman that was on the train will soon be someone else, someone different. Then, I'll laugh at myself when remember my attitude towards that day, and then I'll laugh some more.

Life is made from small anecdotes, and this will be one of them, a small but great anecdote that taught me a huge lesson.

Metzín L. Gallegos