Trains of thought
So here we are. It’s July again – out of the period of diplomatic receptions, QBPs and various national days and into the period of halloumi and watermelon. Soon it will be August, when all social life on the island stops and everybody will be busy just trying to survive the heat and humidity.
Every year I promise myself that I am not going to spend this month of eternal boredom in Nicosia and every year I wake up on August 1 realising I have failed. This year, however, is going to be different. I will get out of Cyprus and do something else and it will be extremely interesting and exciting.
One of the ideas I have is to take a train (no, not from here, I know we don’t do trains in Cyprus) that would transport me somewhere distant and exotic. The possibilities are vast. For example, I have just read that the Chinese have started a new train connection between Beijing and Tibet (two-day trip leading through the highest pass in the world at an altitude of 5,000 metres, oxygen masks provided as well as a possibility of throwing up and upsetting the natives because of the political sensitivity of this project). Exciting? Yes. How much more exciting can it get than going through the Himalayas on a railway? Possible? Yes, why not? As far as I know a one-way ticket to Lhasa only costs about $100 so as long as I hitch-hike to Beijing I’ll be able to afford it. And as for the return? Well, I’ve heard that one should go to Tibet for at least seven years.
Another option I may consider is my life-long dream – an old trans-Siberian train from Moscow to Vladivostok (six-day journey, 10,000 kilometres, a taiga outside and a river of vodka inside the train so again the possibility of throwing up and upsetting the natives – although as a Pole I should be vodka-proof and being Russians, the natives should not be upset anyway). Possible? Yes, I think so again. I have looked at the ticket prices on the internet and they seem a bit steep but I’m sure once I hitch-hike to Moscow’s international railway station I will find something cheaper.
Also, there is an option much closer to Cyprus – a train between Athens and Istanbul that goes through Thrace. I must say I would love to do this one especially as it has the additional bonus of a constantly changing time of arrival (it can take anything from one to two days, depending on delays at the border but there is no extra charge for the additional hours spent on it).
Unfortunately, all the above trains, in spite of being almost perfect, lack one revolutionary feature that the French national railway authorities have recently introduced to their network. It is called the Train of Thought and based on the idea that often while buying your ticket you may also feel like reserving your co-passengers and the subjects that you would like to discuss with them during your trip.
I think the idea is perfect. Imagine that you are a tourist and you are going to a new place and would like to know more about it than your guide book tells you. The Train of Thought makes it all very simple – instead of having to make an effort to locate people who might be able to help you, you just order them along with your ticket. The same goes for businessmen in search of new contacts, politics addicts whose families and friends refuse to talk about the latest elections, or intellectuals who can’t wait to discuss Chomsky or Nietzsche. The Train of Thought brings them all together. The same goes for languages. You want to practice your English or Italian? No problem, at your service immediately. Just specify your level and topics and we will sit you next to an individual with the same abilities.
The only restriction that the French have put on their concept is that any pre-conditions should not be amorous, i.e. it is not a lonely heart dating service. So to put it brutally, you can’t write in your specifications that you want to sit next to an attractive, single, leggy blonde or a hairy, passionate Mediterranean guy with a PhD. Is it a correct approach? I guess so. Too often I have heard confessions from my male friends that their ultimate erotic dream is to be in a train compartment with a beautiful woman who, at the end of the journey, without uttering a single word, would lead them to her flat for a night of wild sex and no commitment.
I think it’s better the French railway authorities don’t enter this area of bringing people together.
But you know what? There are men of two nationalities who never mentioned this fantasy to me: British – as most of the British trains have no compartments, and Cypriots – because we don’t do trains here.
