Bus Rides from Hell

When my friend Tammy came to visit me in India, we took one 5 hour bus ride on a local bus - the cheap way. We started at 5 am, when the bus was almost empty - though not for long. The whole point of the local bus is to cram as many people in as possible and charge very low rates, so the ride only cost us a few dollars. Unfortunately, in India, the local bus can be a bit overwhelming. On one side of the aisle there are two seats, and on the other side three seats, though people commonly insist on squeezing four on one side and three on the other. They are also very old and dirty. Sometimes the windows don't close, or two seats have to be tied together to keep one sitting upright. Sometimes I am surprised they still run at all, because they look like they have been through a war.

A few hours into the trip, the people started piling in. Our giant backpacks were in the aisle, but it didn't seem to phase anyone. Even the very large Indian women just pulled up their sarees and climbed over the piles of luggage, passing bags of crops and small children over our heads into the nearest open space. For Tammy, it was very overwhelming. "Sensory overload," as she put it, and she couldn't understand how I actually enjoy riding the local bus. When I used to go to the village in Dhariawad for my first project at KVK, I rode the local bus for four hours there and back. For me, it's a fabulous way to immerse myself in India and everything I love and hate about it: I can feel the invasion of my senses from all around me and still be able to look out the window and enjoy the beautiful landscape.

This week, Megan, Michael, and I left Varanasi on a night bus to the India-Nepal border. It was a local bus, but very cheap and our only option for traveling at night. We sat on the right side in three seats next to each other. I volunteered for the middle, since I had a blow-up neck rest that I was sure would enable me to sleep. We were also told that since it was a night bus, it would probably not be full, so we could each claim several seats to ourselves and lie down.

Soon after the bus started, it began to rain. Of course, right above my head, there was a leak in the ceiling, and water came plopping down on me. We rode for several hours, it kept raining, and people kept coming on and off of the bus quite regularly - standing room only. I had to wear a raincoat to keep dry, which was quite comical but also very hot. As we got very tired and wanted to sleep, not only did the seats not recline, but also they were not wide enough for all of us to sit with our shoulders squarely forward. Someone had to shift sideways a bit for us to be comfortable.

At some point past midnight, the bus seemed a bit empty. I got up to check out the empty seats, and realized that everyone else had claimed a row of seats for themselves, and we were stuck still sitting three across and squished like never. Around 2:30am, there were rows available and we all spread out. The rain was still trickling down onto me, so I still had to sleep in my raincoat, but it was a bit better. Every 20 minutes or so I woke up when we went into a huge pothole, but it was better than sitting anyway.

We arrived at the border around 5:30am. There were two separate arches to walk under - first the one that said "Indian Border" and the second that said "Nepal Border." I'm not sure what was in between. We had our passports stamped at the Indian immigration office, and bought our visas at the Nepal immigration office. Somehow I expected the offices to be sterile, A/C ed, brightly lit cement buildings, but they were nothing of the sort. Instead it was like walking up to a hole-in-the-wall chai stall. The men yelled, "Going to Nepal?" from across the street and we walked over to their wooden tables and they gave us the stamp. Easy as pie.

We spent the day in Lumbini, Nepal, the birthplace of Lord Buddha. We visited some the monument marking his birthplace and some nearby temples. We planned to leave Lumbini the next day, but were stranded due to strikes and roadblocks all across the country. So we rested for a day, then caught an early bus the next morning to Pokhara. Actually, we were at the bus stand at 6:30am, but there were technical problems, so we waited until 8am for the bus to start. Then we switched to another bus at 9am to take us to Pokhara.

Our bus to Pokhara was nice. It was a minibus, with cushioned seats and curtains on the windows. It was supposed to be a 7-8 hour bus ride. At 11am, however, our bus stopped on a road lined with buses and cars. Up ahead we saw black smoke and an ambulance drove by. A few hours later, we learned it was a strike. It was very hot and sunny outside. We had a chowmein lunch out of someone's kitchen. Around 2:30 Michael and I walked up the road to see what was going on. There was a long iron pole laid out across the bridge over the river, and on either side of the pole were two black tires on set on fire. Everyone around was just kind of staring at it, talking, watching kids jump back and forth over the pole. Finally someone told us the student protesters would clear the way and let us through at 4 or 5pm.

So we sat around some more. I read in the shade of a tree, sweated a lot, drank a coke, played word games with some Swiss girls on our bus. It was a long day. At 4pm we finally got back on the road, only to be stopped again at another road block at 6pm. We waited there for another hour, then proceeded on to Pokhara.

The bus went through the mountains to Pokhara at lightning speed. I was a bit scared when we passed several overturned buses on the side of the road. Eventually I was so tired I nodded off to sleep, but every few minutes I was awoken as we flew over a bump and I literally bounced so high I got air and came completely off the seat. One time when we went around a sharp curve, Megan flew out of her seat into the aisle. Sleep was not possible.

We finally arrived in Pokhara at 11pm. It was a long day, and my booty was quite tired. We have a lovely hotel set back in a garden on the main road through town. Today we are going hiking to try to catch a glimpse of the Annapurna mountain range. Besides the hellish bus rides and stomach bug I'm currently nursing, I like Nepal very much so far.

Adventures in Varanasi and Beyond

Train Disasters

I departed from Udaipur on Monday evening on the 6:30 train, and I arrived in Delhi early the next morning. There, I met up with my brother Graham's friend Megan (who he knew from study abroad in Cairo) and her fellow intern in Punjab Michael, who is from Germany. We spent the morning in Delhi together and booked a train to Varanasi that was to depart at 1:30 p.m.

We arrived at the train station promptly at 12:30, with time to collect our luggage from storage (which was crawling with giant rats) and find our platform. There were some major train delays because of an earlier accident on the railways, so our train did not appear on the information screen. When it was almost 1 p.m., we asked around for directions and moved towards platforms 7 and 9, based on different information given to us by different train station agents. 1:30 came and went, and still our train had not arrived at the station. Around 2 pm, over the loud speakers, we heard what we thought might, possibly, be an announcement about our train leaving from platform 12. I inquired in another inquiry office, and the woman told me that yes, our train was leaving from platform 12 - at any minute!

Unfortunately, I had everything I own with me in my giant backpack, so it was not easy to move. Michael graciously carried it for me and gave me his almost empty backpack and we went running to the train. At the door I shoved our ticket into someone's face, he looked and nodded, and we boarded. As soon as we were on the train started moving. I showed some train employees our seat numbers and they pointed us to the front of the train. We struggled through about 10 cars to the front of the train - everyone insisted our car was at the front. When we reached the front, we showed some more people our ticket. Then we knew there was a problem. They shook their heads and muttered in Hindi and finally told us we were on the wrong train and this one was not going to Varanasi. What followed went something like this:

Train man: This wrong train. Not go to Varanasi.
Me: Oh shit, oh shit.
Megan: What should we do? Sir, can you tell us what we should do?
Me: Oh shit, oh shit!
Train man: You get off train! Otherwise you have big problem!
Me: Just get off?
Train man: Yes!
Me: Right here?
Train man: Yes!

Luckily, as the train pulls out of the station, it moves very slowly and often pauses. So when the men told us to get off, the train happened to lurch to a stop, and we got off. It was a far jump down (poor Michael with my bag as heavy as me), but we just walked along the tracks back to the station, much to the amusement of all the Indians watching us from the train windows. When we arrived at platform 12 again, our train was there waiting for us! We boarded, showed our ticket to every person we saw and asked about 15 times if it was going to Varanasi, and soon thereafter it left!

We were so sweaty and exhausted from running and jumping and walking along the tracks that the clean, cool, A/C cabin was a welcome relief. We all took very luxurious naps in the sleepers and still slept well at night.


India's Holy City

Varanasi is an amazing city. We are lucky to be here for the Shiva festival. The city is full of Shivite pilgrims dressed in orange and carrying poles on their shoulders from which hang canisters of smoking incense and flowers and sparkly Hindu decorations. Last night we went to the ghats to watch the festival on the banks of the Ganges river. We lit candles in little banana leaf boats full of flower petals and placed them in the river. We also convinced a group of young Shivite men to hold a sign that said "Happy Birthday Graham" and pose for a picture to send to him. They loved it, and so did Graham I think, who loved Varanasi so much.

Since the river is so high and the current so strong, the police have forbidden boat rides. This morning we awoke at dawn and watched Hindus make puja on the ghats again. We tried to secure an illegal boat ride, but after our guides paddled for two minutes, a neighbor warned them of police trouble nearby and we had to get out without really going anywhere at all. So we walked along the ghats instead, which are not only sprinkled with shrines and temples and bathing pilgrims everywhere, but which are also on the edge of some beautiful, crumbling, ancient and majestic Indian buildings. They look like the palaces of Rajasthan, but darker and more weathered and abandoned.

Tonight we are taking a bus to the Nepalese border where we will process our visas in the morning and then make our way to Lumbini, the birthplace of the man who would become the Buddha. Then we will venture into the mountains of Nepal. I am so tired of being hot and sticky and constantly sweaty that I have decided to stay in the mountains for the rest of my trip in Asia. I will only venture down from the Himalayas for required travel through Delhi. The heat is just not fun anymore.

On Leaving Udaipur

This month I took a two week vacation to travel with two friends from home. It was a welcome break. We went to Dharamsala, trekking in the Himalayas, Amritsar to see the Golden Temple, Jaipur, and finally the Taj Mahal. The Golden Temple and the Taj Mahal were especially spectacular – I won't attempt to describe them. Now I am back in Udaipur but soon to leave again. I have finished my project, completed my last day at work, and in two days I will leave for Varanasi and then Nepal.

Goodbye Rituals

Since I have been back, I have been facing goodbyes everywhere. At my office, the staff held a small farewell ceremony for me where they presented me with a coconut, a garland of marigolds, and put a dot of pink powder on my forehead. My host mom thought I had gone to the temple, as these are all Hindu rituals. Then all the staff members said some words about me, which all came out sounding like eulogies.

One staff member kindly invited me to his home for dinner a few nights ago. His wife cooked us my favorite meal – dal bati churma – though this time not cooked in a cow dung fire. As we were sitting on the cement floor watching Bollywood music videos and eating with our hands, I was quite content and in my element. And then my coworker let out the loudest, never-ending fart that was unfortunately amplified by the cement floor beneath him. No one even flinched. After that I lost my appetite.

Something Sustainable?

I recently watched J.K. Rowling's Harvard commencement address on youtube – a fabulous speech I highly recommend (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L445BmUEXH4). In the first part of her speech, she talks about failure and the role it played in her life and in developing her as a person.

It made me think a lot about failure in my own life. I think mostly I have been blessed with many successes, until now. Though my internship wasn't necessarily a complete failure, at times it did certainly feel that way, and it was certainly full of many small failures. Still, I think all of these frustrations have taught me more in the end than one big successful project would have.

I spent many, many hours sitting at my host desk in the hot office trying to pull a project (or myself) together. And in that time I learned a lot about myself – both strengths and weaknesses. For example, I learned I have a mammoth amount of patience (came in quite handy!). I learned I am resilient in the face of frustration, boredom, and defeat. I learned that if confronted with a task or project that I am in the least bit excited or passionate about, I have energy and self-initiative. When the task is not very exciting to me, I have to dig very deep to find the resolve to pull through. One of my main weaknesses that I had to eventually overcome was my repulsion of asking favors and being the slightest inconvenience to anyone. Since I could do nearly nothing on my own at KVK, this was at first a big problem. I'd like to think that now I am more or less over that hurdle.

In fact I have been able to overcome many of my personal flaws that at times set me back. Often crippled by over-politeness, I learned to openly speak my mind without feeling guilty for telling someone else his idea is not good. I quickly learned that Indians speak in a very blunt manner that often (unintentionally) comes across as rude to Americans. I learned that I must speak back in the same way if I wanted anyone to hear what I was saying.

I gained some good insight into the face of development in India. First and foremost, it is very privileged, and though many organizations boast a "bottom up" approach, I am not sure that is the reality of it.

In addition, the task of social change in a country like India is a daunting one. The population size is such that any efforts can barely make a dent, and it is marked by deeply-rooted traditions, beliefs, and social systems that will be in place for a long time to come. I also learned that as an outsider (by which I mean, not an Indian villager), development projects such as the ones done at KVK are incredibly difficult. There are incalculable, unforeseeable complications that arise from systems of caste, gender, religion, economic status, social hierarchy, and village customs.

I have been asked several times about the meaning of sustainability and how it can be achieved. The more I learn about sustainable development, the less answers I have. Sustainability is surely the biggest challenge in all this. I am nearly certain that my little project at KVK is not sustainable. I only hope that people who actually work in the development sector have more luck with it than I did.