My Train Travels – Wrong train, wrong seats and wrong stations

This blog is a continuation of my previous travel writings, here, of our visit to Europe.

Our first stop was Berlin. We had booked a hotel quite close to the city Centre – one of those buildings which once, I think, belonged to Tsar Nicholas II.  I say so because 375 pictures of the good man were staring at us from every conceivable angle, including three peering down at us in the toilet. But before we could admire the pictures, we had a minor hiccup. 

That of payment. 

The front desk manager, Sergei, welcomed us effusively and continued being the epitome of enthusiasm as I tapped my Travel Card flamboyantly. Nope! Tapped again. Nope again. Then, discarding the flamboyance and replacing it with ever increasing apprehension, tried The Wife’s, my Credit Card, then The Wife’s. Nope.  The increasing apprehension was now overlayed with increasing embarrassment too. We couldn’t help but notice that Sergei too was losing his enthusiasm.  Each failed attempt saw him becoming an increasingly lugubrious Nirupa Roy.

The Wife meanwhile was full of suggestions, all starting with the very constructive ‘Why?’

Fortunately, and just when Sergei was contemplating how to throw us out, I remembered that the amount needed to be paid was in excess of the ‘tap and pay’ setting on my bank app. I corrected the same and paid the amount to much accompaniment of ‘Hurrahs!’ from Sergei. 

Four enjoyable days later, it was time to travel to Prague. We decided to take a train.

The Wife’s research had advised her that the view from the train was breathtaking – what with river Elbe flowing along the train track for almost the entire distance. Dainty villages, green rolling expanses of farms and joyful rivulets add to the visual appeal of the ride, said ChatGPT. 

We of course saw none of that.

Not for want of effort though. The Wife, always big on getting the best ‘view’, spent considerable time assessing, google maps in hand, which side of the train we should sit on. I assisted her with pointless suggestions. She took about an hour, occasionally standing and gesticulating with her hairbrush armed right hand in the anticipated direction of movement, me holding the iPhone compass app open and aligning my nose to true North.

My nose, her right hand and womanly intuition, all three together, unanimously decided that we should sit on the right side, which turned out to be, er, the wrong side. 

What we did see therefore, was the side of a hill, two to three metres from the window during our travel, throughout. The woman was chagrined no end and vociferously damned the hill and Chat GPT with decidedly unwomanly vim.

An agonizingly dull few hours later, we reached Prague. Prague incidentally is called so only by the laymen. We professional Europe travelers call it by its proper name, Praha; which we learnt after quite some confusion trying to figure out the local travel app PID Litacka. 

(It would be appropriate to point out for the benefit of the novices that Munich similarly is Munchen and Cologne is Koln. And no, London is not Lond.)

Unfortunately for us, Praha was not the last stop of the train; it was moving onwards to Budapest. At some point, the electronic signboard in our bogie flashed ‘next stop Praha….’. Proud of our newly acquired command over city names in Europe, we alighted delighted. 

Only to be a bit surprised to see that for a reasonably big city such as Praha, and a known tourist hot spot at that, the station seemed very small. Quaint even. Moreover, hardly any of our fellow passengers alighted with us and we found ourselves standing at a desolate platform. Not a soul in sight! 

On the way to the exit, we finally sighted one youngster with three nose rings and half a head of pink hair (the other half being shaved barren). On querying we learnt that we had got off, not at the main station (Praha.hl.n), but at one of the smaller suburban ones! The Uber to our hotel of course cost us much more than we had budgeted for. 

Knowing where the city actually is, we learnt that day, is more important than knowing the correct name. 

Most of the ‘touristy’ part of Praha is located within a narrow 2 km long stretch. And we being in Praha in the midst of the touristy season, I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that about a 97 million people filled this 2km stretch. And about 90 of the 97 million could be found on the ‘Charles Bridge’, the most famous of Praha’s sights. (The bridge incidentally figures in a large number of Bollywood movies.)  Be that as it may, Praha was heavenly. It is exquisitely beautiful, has a long and exciting history, and one ‘chimney cake ice cream’ shop per tourist. (Us seasoned travelers call it by its proper name, Trdelnik.)

Three exhilarating days later, we wound our way to Munchen. Munchen is full of life, music and unbelievably tasty beer served in unbelievably large beer tankards at an unbelievably large number of unbelievably large beer gardens. (Or more appropriately, ‘biergartens.’) It is clear to me that the founding forefathers of Munich were a bit dim, for they got confused between beer mugs and buckets.

Another three days later we moved onwards to the magical fairytale town of Heidelberg. The journey to Heidelberg however, was anything but magical. 

The Wife was keen to experience the famed German Autobahns and their ‘no speed limits’. The ‘left side steering wheel’ driving in Germany however, made us a bit wary of hiring a car. We decided to travel therefore, by bus instead of a train, as a compromise. A Flixbus.

Germany is an exceptionally clean and orderly country as a whole. The hygiene standards are top class. The Flixbus bus station did not know that. For it was one big overflowing ashtray. It also had a tantalizing fragrance of urine hanging in the air, which wafted gently over one’s olfactory sensory neurons. If hygiene levels of Germany as a whole are close to ten on a scale of one to ten, and Mumbai an apologetic three, then the bus station would comfortably be at minus three thousand. 

The sight of our bus rolling in therefore gave us quite some joy. We were eager to get out of the bus station. Turned out, the hygiene inside the bus was at minus 6000. 

But the two of us, like Bertie Wooster, take pride in the fact that we can take the rough with the smooth. We put on a sunny disposition as we settled into the front seats on the upper deck. The Wife had booked them at extra cost, expecting an exhilarating view. Our disposition turned a bit cloudy though, because the wind screen ahead of us was so dirty and so encrusted with dead insects, that we could hardly see anything! And spoiler alert. The Autobahns are no longer ‘no speed limits’. The traffic is so heavy that, I guess, about 120kmph is the max that one can ordinarily hit. 

An engrossing couple of days later we, based on ChatGPT’s advice, took a slow train from Karlsruhe to Cologne. ChatGPT told us, after complimenting our choice of travel of course, that the stretch Between Mainz and Koblenz is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful rides in the world, comprising…

The Rhine river gorge

Dozens of medieval castles

Charming riverside towns

The famous Lorelei Rock 

Picturesque villages

The Wife expectedly, was all for ‘dozens of medieval castles’ and ‘charming riverside towns’. This time though, we were extra careful insofar as choosing which side of the train to sit on. ChatGPT had advised us to sit on the left side, if you are headed north. We WERE headed north. 

We entered the train, looked around carefully and found that the train manufacturers had confusingly placed the seats somewhat randomly; some facing one direction and some facing the other. Resultantly, half the passengers were left admiring the scenery, and the other half were left admiring the back of the head, or staring into the faces, of complete strangers.

“Did ChatGPT mean ‘left going forward’ or ‘left going aft’?”, we pondered. But then if anything, The Wife and I are intelligent people, bordering on the genius even. So we, like all geniuses, promptly reached a state of paralysis by analysis. Ultimately, and some interpersonal friction and unparliamentary words later, we deduced that the left meant the left wrt the direction of movement of the train.  Fortuitously, we found two empty seats on the ‘correct’ side in a bogie that was otherwise full. We plonked down, glad at our luck. 

What we should have done actually, is curse our luck. Stridently. Now, you will nod understandingly when I say commonsense dictates that any train that moves into a station, not being the end station, will continue moving in the same direction after the stop. But this train, caring two hoots for commonsense (or ChatGPT), started moving back towards the same direction it had come from! (Well-travelled Indians will know that the same thing happens, say at Waltair station in Vizag.)

I’m going to sue the German Govt.

So we ended up on the wrong side again. And when the scenic part of the trip commenced, all we could do was crane our necks trying to catch a few glimpses. We were convinced that the European Cosmos was bent upon ensuring we were never sitting on the correct side. 

Fortunately, a kind local couple acting contrary to the plans of the Cosmos, and noticing two idiots with bitter disappointment on their faces, offered their chairs on the correct side to us. Bless them! We had a happy two hours thereafter. 

I will get back to the rest of our very memorable trip – Cologne, Brussels, Bruges and Ghent some other day. For the present, all I can say is that Europe is fascinating, the scenery is beautiful and the architecture stunning.  I have only one piece of advice for future travelers – Choose your train carefully. And the side to sit on, even more carefully.