Scotland Day 1

The last time I've been on a bed on a train was probably on the night train from Thailand to Laos. 

This time I was on the Caledonian Sleeper to Fort William with Bramina.

We both couldn't figure out how to open the window, and as I was tugging at the window blind, trying to release it, a sharp, piercing beep begun sounding through the air. I leapt away from the window, thinking 'Dammit I've set something off.' And opened the door to our cabin, hoping I could apologise to our neighbours about the noise. Then I realised that the beep was coming not from our cabin but from somewhere else in the train. Our neighbour had emerged from his cabin too, and said 'Fire Alarm.'

I went back into the cabin, told Bramina, and we both begun putting on our shoes and socks over our pajamas, and getting our coats on. Two train staff pushed past me as I was coming out of the cabin again, and brusquely said 'Get back inside,' and then to his colleague, 'The exhaust has set off the fire alarm.'

And so - an eventful start to our holiday.

When I woke the next morning, I managed to lift the window blind before brushing my teeth in the cabin sink.

Aaah

There is nothing that I can compare the Scottish highlands to.

I ate 3 rounds of muesli (which I'd bought the night before) out of a plastic ice cream tub, with a spoon Ying Ying had foraged for me from Pret a Manger, feeling rather like I was a real backpacker in my temporary, make-do, uncivilised breakfast.

Bramina and I bought sandwich supplies from Morrisons, bought a guide book for walks from the tourist information site as an accompaniment to the maps we had already printed out, assembled sandwiches on a bench in the middle of Fort William highstreet, and stashed our luggage in the train station lockers, before walking to Glen Nevis Visitors' Center to begin our first walk.

We'd intended to do the Cow Hill Walk, however, upon reaching the Visitors' Center we realised that the walk instructions begun at the Visitors' Center but then instructed walkers to walk toward Fort William - where we had just come from. And so we flipped through the walk book we'd just bought to seek another route, and settled on a riverside walk.

The sun was so bright and the water so clear, and both of us kept giving longing looks toward the river. And so within an hour of our walk we decided to stop for lunch on a pebbly inlet to have our sandwiches and lie back in the sun.

After lunch, the walk begun to go awry. The path, which had been initially clearly marked, became quite difficult to follow and a couple of times we had to back track to make sure we weren't straying into completely unknown territory. I was comforted by the knowledge that as long as we stuck close to the river, we'd have a clear way back.

We stopped for another time at another pebbly beach, and tried skimming stones. The sun was so bright that I'd stripped down to my thermals, and the gigantic yellow beacon of a jacket I had with me hung from my bag like an extra set of arms. The beach was so quiet, apart from the low ripple of water over stones, and there were plenty of flat stones perfect for skimming, although neither me nor Bramina knew how to properly skim them.

I found myself thinking of the times I skimmed stones with Hannah and Tim in Vang Vieng, Laos.

 

The rest of the walk entered deeper and deeper (quite literally) into boggy territory. The guide book had warned us of two boggy areas, but there were more like twenty continuous stretches of bog land, which muddied our shoes and gave rise to quite a few squeals when suddenly we found ourselves calf deep in wet, sucking, mud.

At one point, we were worried about time, and the fact that the bridge promised on the map, which marked the half way point where we'd cross the river onto a forest path, was no where in sight. Bramina suggested we cross the river at one of it's shallower points, but looking at the current and how wide it was and the fact that we had no idea how deep it was made me unwilling to try that.
At one point, however, Bramina spotted a part of the river that seemed shallow enough all the way through, with not very strong currents. We headed out onto the pebble beach leading to the river - and then I spotted two white houses, which were landmarks along the trail that came just before the bridge.

We decided to keep going along the guide-book-path, and headed up the bank toward the houses, walking straight into the boggiest bit of the walk yet, which turned my turquoise water proof trousers brown with mud and completely covering the sharks and divers on my socks with sludge.

We pushed through, and finally, finally, came to the bridge.

Such a relief.

The forest path back was so easy - clearly marked and straight forward. As we walked, our conversation somehow meandered to Jesus and whether or not he experienced all the normal teenage problems like pimples, and whether he cried as a baby and whether he went to the toilet. Well, I sort of brought Him up, and Bramina, hearing my ruminations, said, 'Wait, so you actually believe he was a real person?!'

'Of course,' I said. (Why would I believe in something I wasn't deeply convicted of as being true?)

Then I began saying that there was historical evidence for Jesus' time on earth, and that it could never be a question of whether He existed, but rather one of whether He is divine, or was simply of 'good teacher' who happened to also claim He was God.

At that point, Bramina said 'Stop Miriam, don't talk about this or I will answer back and we'll have an argument.'

I wanted to finish my sentence/thematic argument, but Bramina said 'No really, don't.'

And so that was that.

It made me sad that we can't talk about something so dear to my heart - or rather, my heart and my whole existence itself. There will always be a degree of separation between us, if we cannot have meaningful and respectful discussions over religion. I suppose it's much like religious discourse in bigger spheres than between friends - between politicians and in the media (where the word jihad is thrown around and no one really knows what it means), in Singapore, where we practice 'religious harmony' but really all we have is religious tolerance (I can't say I harmonise with Muslim or Hindu religions if I  don't really know about them and the deep meaning and faith behind their beliefs)...

We checked into our hostel, cheekily called 'Chase the Wild Goose', and met our hostel room mate - a sweet old man from Northern Ireland with eyes that twinkled and deep dimples in his cheeks. First thing after putting or things down - SHOWERS to wash all that bog mud off! I sluiced off the mud from my shoes and socks and trousers and legs with warm water and the christmas tree soap bar Nat gave me for Christmas.

If ever I indulged in a shower - that was it. I stayed under the steaming water until my hair was damp with condensation and my skin was pink with the heat, and then changed into my clean pajamas. Bliss.