“You did not prepare me for THIS.”

Posted by Kristi on September 26, 2010 · 6 Comments 

(Written on 9/20 but not posted due to lack of Internet access while tucked away in the Himalayas.)

Be prepared for a long one…

Today was the craziest day of both our lives (and we thought the day we arrived in Delhi was insane!). It started with an early wake up call – 4AM – and a knock on the door with our room service breakfast consisting of toast, delicious chai tea and fresh fruit (which we didn’t eat for fear of catching “Delhi Belly” on day 2). We quickly got ready, reassembled our backpacks that had exploded in our room the night before, and headed off to the New Delhi train station. We had tickets on the 6:50 AM train to the holy city of Haridwar, our first stop before getting to the Phool Chatti Ashram later in the day. Nick, having some difficulty with jet lag, had only slept 30 minutes during the night and Kristi was still getting over her cold. Needless to say, we were looking forward to a nice relaxing seven days of yoga and meditation at the Ashram.

In case it wasn’t spread all over the US news (it was the whole spread in the local newspaper in Delhi), two Taiwanese tourists were shot by a drive-by motorcyclist the day we arrived in Delhi. We were already shaken up by the whole taxi experience earlier in the day and the shooting was in the neighborhood next to the one where our hotel was located, so we spent the rest of Sunday inside the hotel…luckily the hotel restaurant food was delicious and it was open 24/7. The hotel staff told us the walk to the train station would be easy- “just 10, 15 minute walk. Straight down the road to train station.” Since we were still feeling nervous and underprepared for India, we asked the hotel to arrange a driver for us. And we’re so grateful we did…it was pitch black (there were no street lights) and the drive took 20 minutes even without much traffic. People were everywhere, on their way to work, school, etc and the straight walk consisted of many twists and turns.

Arriving at the train station, we were amazed by the chaos already taking place at 5:30 AM. Every person in any vehicle with a horn was honking at someone or something. The drop off area was not well-lit, but there was enough light to make out masses of people everywhere. The sounds and smells were a lot for this early in the morning. We were trying to figure out how to get into the train station and happened upon the “entry” sign leading into the train platform. We walked toward it before realizing there was a line of 250 people winding through the station. We walked to end of the line where Nick almost fell for the “come here, I will help you find your way, but then I will make you pay me” trick. Kristi grabbed Nicks arm as he started to walk off, urgently reminding him to stay put (ironic since Nick is the one who stressed to Kristi that we should NEVER accept offers from anyone). We put our stuff through an oversized and very ancient X-ray machine, which couldn’t possibly be actually x-raying anything because we think it was built before 1932.

At 6:50, we boarded the Shatdbi Express to Haridwar. We weren’t sure what to expect…maybe an older version of a Metra commuter train? But this train was not at all what we imagined. It was the oldest train we’ve ever seen…the regular cars were so full of people, hanging out of windows and the smell was overwhelming. Luckily we had booked first class tickets ($18!!!). The seats were stained and lumpy but at least we weren’t sitting on top of each other. This was the first of many times we felt like we were in the scene of a movie. For as old as the train was, we can say they didn’t skimp of service. It was almost annoying with everything they kept bringing…water, tea, cookies, cereal/milk, omelets, more tea and newspapers. Three and a half hours later, we arrived at the Saharapur stop where it was announced that we would be standing for 20 minutes. This seemed strange but everything had seemed strange since we landed in India.

After about 10 minutes, people started getting out of their seats and shouting in Hindi…we quickly realized something must be wrong. The train was terminating at this station due to flooding on the track and all passengers were asked to leave the train. We were at least 85 kilometers from our destination. We just sat and looked at each other, wondering what the hell we were going to do. Kristi turned on her cell phone and luckily had service, so we emailed Happy (the transportation agent with the Ashram) to see if he could have a car pick us up here instead of in Hardiwar. Now, it was a waiting game, but we couldn’t stay on the train. We grabbed our bags and headed out of the train station. People were everywhere…we were overwhelmed with the number of locals sprawled around the station. They were sitting everywhere. We had to carefully decide where to walk so we wouldn’t step on anyone. Since there were hundreds of other people trying to get out of this city, there were no taxis available…we were stranded, at least for longer than we wanted to be. And to make it even more uncomfortable, there were hundreds of people staring at us. Sarahanpur is not a tourist destination so they were probably not used to seeing so many tourists in their hometown. Still no reply from Happy, so we looked around for someone who may be able to help us.

We were standing next to two guys who seemed to be in the same situation as we were. It turns out that they were Czech guys who spoke English (hey guys!) so we asked them if they had any clue what to do. Luckily, they were traveling for business and had a local agent with them. Meanwhile, the five of us standing together started to get a lot of attention. Teenage boys came up to us and joined our circle. They studied our clothes and bags and even took a few pictures standing with us. We noticed many of them were holding hands, whispering and laughing…maybe at us? At the same time, several 4-ish year-old boys came up to us, tapping very lightly but constantly on our forearms, putting their other hands to their mouths, signaling they were hungry. It broke our hearts not to give them anything/ignore them, but we had been warned that if we gave something to one, we’d be surrounded by other people wanting help. Around this time, Happy had responded that he had a driver on the way and he’d be there in about an hour. Knowing that the roads were terrible due to the excessive rain, we prepared ourselves for a much longer wait. We decided our best bet was to stay with our new friends.

The Czech businessman had decided to head back to Delhi on the train leaving at 8PM and were going to find a hotel to rest in while they waited. They graciously offered to let us tag along. We waited in their hotel room for another two hours until our driver called to say he had arrived. Then we were off on the next adventure for the day…driving in India.

So, we thought traffic was crazy in NYC or LA. But India has them both beat by a long shot. Kristi was lucky to be in the back seat, but Nick had a front row view of all of our near death experiences (we will post videos when we have better internet access). Couple of observations:

1. Lanes don’t exist. Well, there are lines, but no one stays in them. Oh, and it’s always possible to fit more than one car in a single lane.

2. Horns, horns and more horns. They use them to communicate and- to say I’m behind you, I’m next to you, I’m coming around the corner, you’re getting too close to me, Hey cow (or monkey) – move, I’m about crash in to you, move the f*** out of the way…

3. Chicken is the name of the game. To get anywhere, you must pass many slower moving vehicles. This requires drivers to enter oncoming traffic even if it seems impossible to clear. This often requires oncoming cars to pull off onto the shoulder to avoid sudden death. This may seem terrifying to most, but apparently it lulls Nick to sleep.

Six hours later, but we arrived at the Ashram in one piece. We were thirsty, hungry, dirty, needed the toilets and were not wearing proper yoga attire, but were immediately instructed to drop our bags and go straight into a yoga class already in progress. At this point, Kristi turned to Nick and whispered “You did not prepare me for this” before walking into the dark room (more detail on this in our next blog). Yoga turned out to be just what we needed as we felt refreshed. Next on the agenda was dinner. We were handed a metal plate with four separate sections, a spoon and a metal cup and pointed in the direction of a dark dining hall. We took our shoes off (required to enter all buildings) and walked in to find everyone sitting Indian style along the walls with their plates sitting in front of them. Some of the Ashram staff walk around and serve you out of big metal buckets with large ladles. There were two fluorescent lights for the whole room and the sound of metal spoons on metal plates echoed around the room…another time we felt like we were in a movie, a jail scene this time. The Ashram staff took pity on us and told us we could handle all the check-in formalities the next day and showed us up to our “honeymoon suite (see video post).” We immediately passed out.

Lessons from the day:

1. Accept that things will not always go as planned. Life can be uncomfortable; we may be terrified, confused or completely out of our element, but we can handle it.

2. You can read about things all day long, but until you immerse yourself in it, you cannot truly understand it. We studied India, but nothing can come close to the real thing.

3. Fear is powerful. As said by an Ashram friend, “India is like sand paper.” It will grind you down but will soften you, which is definitely the case. When times get tough, sometimes it takes a little acceptance / adjustment to live with contentement. When you have no choice but to find the courage to accept things as they are, the adjustment happens without knowing it.

4. Nick can sleep through anything.

Filed under India, round the world travel