trains, buses and rickshaws

out of my 5 weeks away, i've only had 2 crap days. not bad at all considering but the following may have been the worst (besides the sick day).

after my blissed out experience in pushkar, i decided it was time to head for the hills. my time was limited and as much as i would have loved to have spent a whole month in pushkar, i wanted to check out the mountains (my favorite) before i left india. i had some friends from the bombay shoot up in dharamsala (where the dalai lama lives) who were shooting footage of all the free tibet protests happening there. it sounded like an interesting place to be and right next to the himilayas, so i made my game plan to get there.

i was going to go from pushkar to jaipur then jaipur to agra (to see the taj mahal), then agra to delhi all by bus... then take a night train up to dharamsala. that was a lot of ground to cover but i was up for the challenge. got to agra just fine (with a few painful bus journeys but what else is new?). got there in time to see the taj at sunset. reeeeally cool and glad i made the effort to see it. incredibily touristy but i actually got goosebumps as i walked through the gate and saw the milky white perfectly symetrical architectural masterpiece in the distance.

the guesthouse i was staying in didn't make train bookings so i thought i would brave the train station myself. big mistake. had some guy trying to help me the whole time who i thought was just trying to make a buck, so i wasn't trusting him (although i think he was just being nice... who knows!). ended up waiting in a big line only to find out the train i wanted was booked. so in order not to wait in giant line again, decided to go for the 6am train to delhi where i could catch the night train later that day.

got up at 5am after not really sleeping and headed out of my guesthouse. the gate was locked! so trudged all the way back with my bags and had to wake someone to let me out. the streets were pitch black and as i made my way down the street i tripped and fell right on my face. HARD! this was going to be the start of a great day. UGH!
it really hurt but i managed to get up and find a ricksaw to take me to the train station. got on the train fine.

as we got into the city and everyone started to get their things, i figured this was my stop so i got mine too... without question. another big mistake. after asking around, i realised i got off at the wrong station! UGGGGGH!!!! i was so flustered. had no idea how far i was from the station i wanted and got talked into taking a taxi for MORE than i paid for my friggin train ticket from agra! bastard. i was so upset that i just said fine. couldn't deal with argueing with the jerk and honestly had no idea how far i really was.

after driving through the streets of delhi for about 20 minutes we got there. yep, total rip off. fuckit... just wanted to buy my tix to dharamsala, check my bags in left luggage and wander around til my train left that night. got my tix just fine. then had to take a rickshaw to ANOTHER station to leave my bags. got all the way there and found out fucking left luggage closed at 4:30pm and my train wasn't until 9:30! i was going to have to wait around the stupid station for 5 hours. AAARRRRGGG!

so for my few hours of freedom from the bag, i wandered around the crazy streets of old delhi. wasn't really feeling it at all. tons of men staring, too much hubbub for me to handle. found my way to an "internet cafe" where i thought i'd waste some time. i'm telling you, i would win the amazing race... winding through insanely tiny mazes of alley ways, i found the "cafe" which was a cement block of a room with a couple crap computers from 1995. mid-way through my last blog post (pushkar) the electricity goes down. nothing, done. i was SO over this day!

left feeling very defeated. got back to the train station, had a crap lunch at the station restaurant, got my bag and headed to the "ladies retiring room." and just waited. the sitting around was killing me. i had an anxious moment of scrapping the whole trip to dharamsala and trying to catch a bus to rishikesh instead. but then a nice girl from the US came in the waiting room and we had a long chat while she was waiting for her train. after moaning about my indecision, she convinced me to keep my plan, so i did. just needed some guidance at that point.

she left for her train and i still had 3 hours to kill. ended up befriending a nice group of bengali women who were fascinated with my white skin. just kept pointing at my arms saying "beautiful." then a group of school girls came over and they each wanted their photo with me. guess i was the novelty white girl in the waiting room. it was amusing and passed the time.

finally my train came. i had to rush to find my correct car. i was stoked to find it was just me in my 2nd AC compartment (plush city) and just as i was about to stretch out over the whole space, a sikh man came in. eesh... i wasn't in the mood to watch over my shit and deal with more staring. turned out the guy was totally friendly and spoke perfect english. we ended up chatting for a good portion of the night. he was fascinated by the western way of relationships and asked some VERY personal questions. i had read all about indians being very frank in their questioning and had experienced some of that but nothing like this.

he wanted to know if i had a boyfriend (lied and said yes), how many boyfriends i'd had in the past, when i lost my virginity (!) AND the topper... how often i had sex with my current boyfriend (!!!). HA! i couldn't even answer that one and almost felt like asking how often he banged his arranged marriage wife, but thought better of it. i wasn't into the sex topic with this dude but he was totally innocent about it. just curious and probably trying to prove the theory that us westerners were big old sluts.

ANNNNYWAY, long story short, finally got some sleep and arrived in pathankot where i had to catch a 4 hour bus to get up to dharamsala. made it there after a nutty gov't bus ride through the windy hills. the scenery was very beautiful and i was happy to be in the cool mountain air with greenery all around. got to mcleod gang (where dalai lama lives) and got a room where my friends had suggested. a few minutes later i got a call from sam (who had worked on the shoot in bombay), asking where i was. we discovered we were in the same hotel, then the same floor, then opened our room doors and realized we were staying right next to each other! so funny.

we got lunch (delicious tibetan dumpling soup) and caught each other up on our last weeks. i passed out for the rest of the afternoon having been through the travel ringer the last couple of days. soooo needed it.

we got dinner, more chatting, then more passing out and woke up to a horrible rain storm outside my room. the morning was a wash. crazy downpour. not happy but not particularly upset either. sam and i made it through the rain to have yummy lattes at her favorite spot and then after hearing the rain wasn't going to stop we both decided to find a travel agent and leave.

so much for my big trip to dharamsala. it seemed really nice but i had absolutely no regrets. i wanted to spend my last week somewhere beautiful but preferably with sunny weather. so i booked another overnight train to rishikesh. i got to see the buddhist temple and where the dalai lama lives and plenty of tibetan monks before leaving.

got on the train last night, had a bit of sleep and arrived in rishikesh 10 hours later. no muss, no fuss. i gotta say, india is pretty easy to get around. has made all this hard traveling not terribly difficult (save for a few hellish buses in rajasthan). in any case, rishikesh is GORGEOUS. just what the doctor ordered. perfectly sunny skies, maybe 80 degrees with a cool breeze, the bright green ganges river running through lush hillsides. temples and ghats along the river with suspension bridges going over. it's ideal.

i'll be staying my last week here... getting some peace and quiet. maybe take some yoga and meditation classes, take a walk to the waterfalls, perhaps do some white water rafting. it's all good. everything is perfect, just the way it is.

peace and quiet in pushkar

pushkar was like a dream. it was just what i needed to recharge the batteries and refuel my love for india. a very serene and spiritual place... buildings set around a small lake with desert hills surrounding. it was very laid back and definitely drew a hippie crowd. i almost felt like it was india's version of burning man a couple times. saw plenty of neo-hipies with crazy dreads and bizarre fashions. who knew?

getting there was quite an adventure. the bus ride from jodhpur turned out to be desent. it was air conditioned and i had a seat to myself. and the meds the frenchies gave me worked! i managed to get all the way to pushkar without crapping myself (although the stomach cramps were pretty awful).

the crazy part of the story was when the bus desided to drop me on the side of the highway. the guy just pointed to me and said "pushkar." i followed a couple others having no idea where i was or what i was supposed to do. the guidebook said this can happen sometimes but it didn't say how to find the connecting bus. i asked a nice looking man "bus to pushkar?" and he sort of motioned to come with him. he hopped in a ricksaw so i came along. figured it must have been close.

minutes and miles go by. no one speaking english. just me, my backpack and no sense of what to do in the middle of some random city WITH stomach cramps and a possible diarrhea attack. YEEES! as we continued on, the man i followed finally got off. i wondered if i was supposed to get off too but he made the motion to keep going. ok, i thought. seriously, no clue.

as we kept going and the streets and noise got more congested, i started to worry a bit. did this driver know where he was suppose to take me? then a big family piled in. they all just stared and laughed at me. next 4 school boys climbed aboard. with no more room for my backpack, one of the boys just picked it up and held it for me. i think there were about 10 of us in that tiny ricksaw at that point. luckily one of the boys spoke english and apparently i was going the right way. i asked him to tell the driver to make sure and it was all good.

finally made it to the ramshackly bus station. again, no english or white people anywhere. and no clue what to do. another kid from the ricksaw who i didn't even notice popped up and told me what bus to get on. ha! too much. this was my first gov't bus. it cost about 5 cents and i know why. they packed about 100 people in there. literally men were hanging off the sides. i was so tired and sick but really amused and loving it. a sweet older woman sat next to me and we shared a giggle when she was trying to push back some of the men falling in her lap. i made the elbowing motion, signalling to her to tell them to back the fuck off. she LOVED that.

about 30 minutes later another random bus stop. the woman yelled "PUSHKAR" and i grabbed my shit and got off quickly. again, no idea. just started walking and asked a few people for the white house (yes, ironically my guesthouse was called the white house). after getting only slightly lost, i finally found it. SUCCESS. i seriously felt a huge sense of accomplishment for making it that far all with a sick belly.

the guesthouse was perfect. clean white sheets with a soft bed AND squishy pillow and a window AND a balcony AND a hot shower. bliss! i slept so soundly that night and was over my illness.

next morning, up on the roof of my place for breakfast, i met a lovely dutch girl, laura, who offered to show me around the town. so we went around. i grabbed loads of photos (coming soon!). she was keen to do a camel trek. i'd heard not the greatest things but when i heard you could do short walks it sounded cool for a sunset ride. so we booked it and i'm SO GLAD we did. turned out to be one of my favorite moments of the whole trip.

desert silence. open spaces. little farms and workers in the fields. total peace and serenity. my guide spoke maybe 5 words of english and tried teaching me some hindi words for what we were riding past. very sweet. at one point, the english speaking guide asked if we'd like to stop for chai. sounded great but where were we going to find chai in the middle of the desert?

soon enough, our camels took us to a little shack where i could make out a woman in a bright pink sari was waiting for us. she walked over to a goat tied to a post and began to milk it into a metal pail. i was amazed! she was milking the goat that was going to be in our chai! a huge smile came across my face. this was too cool.

next, she knelt down over a small fire pit and began to break up sticks and started a fire. she stirred the masala ingredients together with the goats milk and soon enough, we were sipping the most indulgent chai ever. a few men from the fields came over along with another gypsy woman with a giant nose ring attached to her ear. we all sat around sipping chai. i was the happiest girl on earth at the moment.

we said our shukriyas (thank yous) and namastes (goodbyes) and got back on our camels, bellies full of warm chai and rode off into the sunset. as we rode, the sky turned from pink to dark blue and a few miles ahead, the stars came out. i sorted wished we had booked the whole night to stay over in the desert. it was a much cooler experience than i imagined. but i took notice of myself in that moment and i felt 100% content. nothing can ever take that moment away and i'll remember the feeling forever (sorry to be all gushy about it, but it's true!).