Some people are not destined to travel well together.
I learned this the hard way last year, when every time that Lauren Terry and I would traverse India, anything and everything that could possibly go wrong, did. Missing trains, being stuck on a single bunk with ourselves and 2 other Indian ladies (we resolved that one by throwing major temper tantrums to the ticket collector, and playing the 'I'm a white tourist' card), having to almost resort to peeing out of windows on overnight buses- the worst you can imagine, it happened to us. For my first year here in India I assumed that it was the norm to have travel go amiss, that it was perfectly fine to have an extra day scheduled into travel plans to make up for when things went awry.
In fact, still to this day, when things go smoothly, I become anxious, wondering when something will go wrong. I often find myself on edge, wondering when it is going to happen and what it will be.
Alison and I traveled just fine together; with the exception of one stomach illness and one train we didnt make the waitlist off of, we managed quite capably. Mackenzie and I, on the other hand, were the exact opposite: we did not mesh well at all with the Indian travel community.
It all began in Goa, where our flight to Delhi was delayed by six hours on account of fog, making Ali miss her flight back to the states. Luckily, thanks to mom and dad, we were able to get that sorted, and once seeing off Ali, things began to fall OUT of place for us, quite quickly. This is when we realized that perhaps, we were not the luckiest of travel buddies.
After spending what can easily be classified as too much time in Delhi, and after a severely drawn out train ride from Agra, to say that we were more than ready to leave the city would be an extreme understatement. We left our guest house with plenty of time to get to the train station.
Now, every single time I have taken a train from Delhi, which has been numerous times, I have left from the New Delhi station, never consciously paying attention to the fact that there are 4 stations in the city...so of course I didn't bother to double check the ticket to see where we were leaving from.
We arrived at the New Delhi station at platform 16, and checked the board to see where our train was boarding. Except our train was not on the board, which I found odd, but still no flashing light went off. After wandering around, half hoping to miraculously stumble upon our train, we decided that seeing as we only had 18 minutes, we should probably ask someone to help out.
We chose the most knowledgeable man in the train station, a coolie who knows all the train schedules like the back of his hand, seeing as he makes his living carrying luggage from arrivals on top of his head. While he speaks broken English and I speak broken Hindi, we managed to understand that our train is not here, and we had 16 minutes to make it across the city to the Old Delhi train station.
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| Earlier in the day this is what the streets of Old Delhi were like |
We booked it out of there, sprinting into the nearest rickshaw and scaring the driver half to death with our threats of 'hurry hurry' and ' go! -we aren't paying you if we miss our train'. White knuckled our faithful driver stared forward, dead silent, not responding to our threats. Naturally we were stuck behind cycle rickshaw after cycle rickshaw and the pedestrian traffic was at its peak. We made it to the Old Delhi train station with 4 minutes to spare- running past the board and seeing that our train was at the last possible platform: 14. By this time, thoughts of what I would do with another three days stuck
in Delhi flashed through my head and I began to have what could be
considered the closest I have ever been to a panic attack.
We booked it to the escalator, which of course was not functioning and we had to bootcamp climb up. I am not sure how many of you have ever taken the time to notice, but escalator steps are quite large. Much larger (and steeper) than the average stair. Keep in mind that we also had fully packed backpacks on, weighing at least 30 pounds each... By this point we had reached close to exhaustion and had to take a speed walking break and while wiping the sweat out of our eyes, we saw our train in the far off distance, getting ready for take off. Quite like the scene in Home Alone when the family runs through the airport for their flight to Paris, Mackenzie and I took off, throwing ourselves down the stairs to the platform and jumping into the first compartment we came to.
This happened to be sleeper class and an entire basketball (or some sports team- I wasn't really in the state to notice what) was settling down to sleep. Looking like quite the sweaty physco path, and drawing the attention of the entire compartment, I barely was able to spit out the words 'Dehradun Express?' understandably. I finally was able to communicate my out of shape babble, and confirmed we were at least on the right train, figuring we would just need to get off at the next stop to find our bunks and train section.
After the train hadn't left for 30 seconds, we decided to take the risk and run as far as we could to try and find our beds. By some stroke of fate, we made it to our bunk, were able to catch our breath, and bask in the beauty of 1AC, the highest of the train classes, which I have never had the opportunity to ride in- we had our own room, with a functioning door, a mirror, and we even had our own electrical sign to alert us when the bathrooms were open. Talk about riding in style...even the toilets were decently clean.
After that adventure, we figured we were probably done with the bad luck. Oh were we wrong. Two days later we found ourselves in another mess.
My favorite way to get around the north of India is by city bus. They cannot rip me off due to what we call skin tax, and it never fails to be an interesting adventure. Mackenzie and I made the first mistake of showing up to the bus station at 'office hour' (what we call rush hour). EVERYONE, well every man, in Rishikesh seemed to be in an extremely urgent need to get to Dehradun.
We were a bit hindered because we had our big packs on and could not shimmy in through the windows, as we saw a few men do. After watching the chaos of two buses pull in, fill up, and leave all within the matter of five minutes, we mentally braced ourselves to do a bit of pushing around. After pushing and shoving and a few bouts of hair pulling, we got on the bus, but had to stand the entire way because of course no man is going to give his seat up for a lady.
My favorite travel mishap though, comes at the very end of Mackenzie's time in India. We were taking the 7 am train from Dehradun and just to be safe, booked a cab down the mountain for 5 am. We woke up to the sounds of rain on the roof, but heeded it no attention, as we were scrambling to pack our bags, mine for Nepal, and hers for home.
We open the front door to find that it is not just raining, it is hailing, and clearly has been for a while, as there is at least four inches of snow/ice already on the ground. Kenzie had a pulley suitcase, which did not work so well in the snow given that for every five steps she took, a hill of snow would develop underneath. We struggled with it for a while, getting it to the main path when half of the pull handle snapped off, thus making it even harder to pull in the snow.
Taking turns lifting it, we finally made it to the parking lot assuming the worst was over and that we soon would be able to dry off (we had no umbrella or rain proof clothes on) and rest in the car. We were running late and it was weird that the driver wasn't there yet, so we started to panic a bit.
Just then a man in a red poncho, blowing behind him as he ran down the hill began yelling my name. It was Bunty, our cab driver, and he let us know that his car couldnt make it up the hill, that he had been trying to get it here since 3 am, and that we would just have to walk a little bit further to get to the car. When we asked how far we had to walk he said, oh, just a half a mile. UPHILL. With ice, snow, no rain gear, a broken suitcase, croc shoes, and a big backpack. Above all that, we had to hurry because we were operating on an already tight schedule.
We finally got to the car after enduring what can only be described as pure agony, when Bunty decided to inform us that he did not yet have his snow tires on. I am not sure if you have seen a picture of what the roads up here look like, but if not, please reference the one below:
You will notice that to the side, it is a straight shot down the cud. Now imagine these roads, full of ice and with no tracks to follow because it is 5 am. We had to get out and push twice, had all the windows down in an attempt to see,and the entire time I had my hand on the door handle, as Bunty warned, ready to jump at any time. I am fairly certain that I did not breathe once the entire ride down the mountain.
Somehow, we made our train in time, once again running, and jumping on as it pulled away, spending our last journey together soaking wet, exhausted, smashed in a cart with 7 other people who didn't necessarily smell the best, and a severely damaged piece of luggage that had to sit in the middle of it all.
In retrospect, these are great stories: I can't help but smile as I relive them. But at the times, all I could think about was why I chose to live in India, a country where everything seems to only just function and fit together, fused entirely by chaos. Then I realized, it makes things interesting, it keeps me on my toes, and it keeps my heart pumping. What would it be like to travel in an organized country? Bland, trivial and monotonous. So watch out, upon my return to the States, I am going to be driving like an idiot, avoiding all traffic signals, signs and the use of lanes...
While we never would have believed it at the time, it was well worth the journey.
