At some point I got the idea that it'd be fun to travel from Brisbane to Airlie Beach -- my gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef -- via train. It's difficult to explain but I held firm in this belief after learning (1) the total length of the train ride is approximately 20 hours; (2) it would cost less to take the one hour and twenty minute flight between my destinations; and (3) all "sleeper car" tickets were sold out, leaving me with the "economy" option (meaning I was destined to sleep upright, airplane style).
Two and a half hours in and I'd come to the conclusion that I may have romanticized the idea of train travel. Fortunately I ended up sitting around to some pretty interesting people.
Now, quite frankly, most of these folks seemed a little sketchy -- not least of which was the guy who asked if I was nervous traveling in a foreign country before telling me that there was no need to worry because "he's got my back." (This comment -- coupled with the impression left by seeing the man behind me sleeping without his shirt on -- caused me to spend the majority of the trip in the lounge car.)
The man sitting next to me, however, was a different story. He's 75 years old (though I would have guessed 95), wears thick glasses that make his eyes bulge, and I could never tell whether he was looking at me. But we got on well regardless. And he'd brought grocery bags of food to eat -- a gallon of milk included!
He tells me that he has "a touch" of Parkinson's and "a bit" of cancer. He's dying.
He was taking the train to visit his ex-wife, hoping to reconcile after 25 years, and he's decided, just now after scanning an atlas for the better part of an hour, that he's going to Papua New Guinea before he passes.
He tells me that all the traveling I'm doing is fine for now but at some point I need to make something of my life. I need to do something that people view as important. "Results" is the word he used. "You need results!"
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