A Cautionary Tale

We took an overnight train to Agra – economy 2^nd sleeper, which means you get three tiers of bunks, and the aisles are busy with food and drink sellers going up and down, and cries of “pani water pani water”, “chai chai chaieeee”, “samosa samosa samosa”. We snatched a few winks of sleep in the gently rocking carriage, and arrived early in the morning to the bustling station.

We had decided to buy our tickets on to Dehradun while we were there, but as the general allowance of tickets had run out (as per usual), we had to wait for the 'tatkal' tickets, which you pay a bit more for. There was a girl managing the line and letting everyone know what was going on. For a while we were able to keep track of who was where in the line, but in the hour before the tickets came available we had to go back and keep our place in the line.

I stood there, people elbowing, packed together (even though there was so much space behind us!), with a short stand-in by Jasmine K after they got some breakfast, until finally we got our tickets, wedged ourselves into a tuk-tuk, and headed for our hostel. We got there, he asked for our passports, I started digging through my bag, and then with a mild puzzlement dug through it again, and then carefully took out everything and put it back.. with a growing sense of alarm I did the same again, ad checked my other bag. By this time the others had realised something was up: I had lost my passport.

Back to the tuk-tuk driver (who was hanging about cos he was still trying to sell us a tour), and back we flew the way we came. We had stopped on the way to take a picture of the Taj Mahal, and I remembered my bag being quite full and juggling things when I fished out my camera, so I thought maybe my passport bag had fallen out there. If it had, there was perhaps one chance in a million that it would still be there. Jasmine and I went up and down the road to no avail. Next stop: the train station. Off we sped, my mind running over all the possibilities and courses of action, trying to work out how bad the worst scenario was going to be.

I went into the ticket room, looked around, and was directed to go ask the station manager. On the way out I saw, mud-stained, crumpled, in a pile of rubbish, my passport packet. My heart just dropped. It was empty.

I continued miserably to the office, and told the manager my story. He nodded, told me to sit down and asked my name. “Jasmin” I said.

He went over to the cupboard, opened it, and handed me my passport. I nearly cried with relief. Thanked him roundly, and left. He said that the sweeping lady had handed it in. I had had a cash card, and US and Thai baht adding to about AU$75. I imagine either someone took it, or it somehow dropped out of my bag when I was in that crazy ticket line.. and whoever took it for some reason just made off with the money and not the passport – even though the passport is worth soo much more on the black market. Crazy. I couldn't believe it.

So yeah, keep being careful with your passports, ok?