Trials of India
India was kinda crazy. Certain things happen, are always happening, which cannot be easily understood with a western mindset. But what I need to convey first is that itâs another world that operates on seemingly unspoken and foreign logic.
Traffic is a prime example. Itâs almost maddening to watch. I did witness a few accidents there. But, for the billion plus people walking, all the Tuk-tuks, motorcycles, push carts, âcyclesâ, and cows moving independently, all within centimeters of one another, one typically remains unscathed.
The streets themselves are another thing of pure fascination to me. One typically orients based on specific landmarks, signs, shops/stalls. The markets there for whatever reason are in constant flux. âIndia timeâ is variable and dependent on unknown factors. Only trains can be expected to run somewhat on schedule. Space is also inherently amorphous. The people and stalls in markets are constantly moving depending on the day or hour. Iâve gotten so ridiculously lost getting back to a hostel for no other reason than the street appears completely different than it did when I left.
I spent a few days in Delhi walking around the markets, metro, and cowshit. For the first time on the trip I paid to store my bike. There just wasnât space in the hostel in Delhi even if they wanted to. Anyways, it cost less than $10 for a month.
There was never a dull moment in Delhi. Iâd walk by a naked man eating out of a bowl in the building next door. Alley kids would throw firecrackers through the door into the lobby. There was plenty of wildlife in Delhi too. There were plenty of cockroaches, pidgins, cows, surprisingly chipmunks, and hundreds of hawks overhead, presumably fed by an endless supply of rats. There were also men on the street trying to sell me anything from wristwatches to women.
I arrived to Udaipur in the early morning and I went down to the lake while the sun was coming up. In Hinduism, certain animals are sacred and in these early hours there were many people passing through the plaza and tossing food to various animals. There were flocks of pidgins, some lazy cows that wandered down, and the occasional rat that would pop out of a crack to grab a corn kernel and jump back. Sunrise was always my favorite time of day in Africa, and felt similarly here too. It was a vibrant, odd, but peaceful scene to witness in the orange light along with the scent of burning incense ironically stuck into some cow-pies nearby.
I traveled by train and bus to Goa and spent most of my time with a fella named Aaron and a gal from Mumbai, Poonam. We did a lot of eating out and some beach time and some party time. It was somewhere around this time Iâd decided I was going to go home.
There was no dramatic shift, but a combination of geography, loneliness, and finances had me come to the conclusion that I was feeling ready to finish. Rajasthan had been a bit lonely and while Iâd heard good things about Northeast India and Myanmar, Iâd already spend plenty of time in Southeast Asia.
Loneliness is a slippery thing. People often ask whether I get lonely. Thereâs a notable distinction between being alone and being lonely. For example, in vast desert, I can be completely on my own with only the sand and sun and camping with stars at night. And with myself as company I can be completely content. Loneliness on the other hand is much more insidious. It can sneak up on you and suffocate slowly. If Iâve ever felt lonely itâs in cities and ironically, or accordingly, I felt it in India which has 1.4 Billion people. Itâs a place where youâre never truly alone.
In Goa I got dinner with Aaron and a nearby cafe. I got some kinda fish curry. The waiter had limited English but I told him I would like to know (for curiositiesâ sake) What was in the âtraditional hamburger.â âItâs not cow, right?â I asked. He met me with a sharp head shake. âIs it meat?...â I gently inquired. He, this time, replied with a quintessential Indian head bob of unclarity. âNevermind... I donât wanna know.â I murmured.
I met with two other fellas I had met earlier in Udaipur that said for lunch a man had offered them the âsecret menuâ which they had ordered steaks from. Now, you can get everything under the sun in Goa, legal or illegal. But still, I wouldnât be surprised if it was buffalo đ.
Aaron and I booked an overnight train from Goa back to Delhi. It was close to Diwali and we were surprised that sleeper class if any was still available online. (It wasnât as we would soon figure out.) We had electronic tickets with seat number listed as WL 85 and 86. Not finding the WL section, we came to find out we were actually number 85 and 86 on the waitlist... The train conductor didnât have the will to kick two foreigners off the train, but we had to spend the ride with the other freeloaders in between the cars.
Sleeper class is basic enough. But this was sitting upright against the side door of the end of the car. It was cold, cramped, noisy, dusty, and they needed to open the door plenty in the morning. Another conductor came by and we were forced to pay the ticket price along with a small âfee.â It was a maddening, mostly sleepless, 30 something hour affair. One that would get me sick.
I spent a week in Rishikesh after getting back. It was an amazing place. To summarize though: I explained to a couple later how it was considered a holy place meat and alcohol are not allowed to be sold there. âJosh... What were you doing there then??â They wanted to know âYoga?...â I replied hesitantly to my own confusion and surprise.
It had been a bit hazy in Rishikesh, but Delhi was now enveloped in cloud. Not clouds though per se, but smog. It was a combination of burnt crop smoke, emissions, and fireworks from Diwali. I wanted to leave Delhi, but the smog made even being outside hazardous. One day it reached a point of being the most polluted recorded day in history. Equivalent I read to smoking more that 50 cigarettes in a day. India nowadays makes China look good. Itâs easy for me to ridicule, but it is a reminder how privileged I am to be able to pass through, whereas this is reality for millions who have no recourse.
When I finally did escape, I did so with Chris, a German cyclist, headed to Asia. There were another two cyclist couples headed out of Delhi straight for Nepal, but Iâd coaxed Chris into checking out the Taj Mahal and biking through northern India and floating a bit of the Ganges to Varanasi.
Leaving the city we hit quite a bit of traffic and were still pretty aggravated with the level of pollution. I told him that if he was leaning more towards Nepal we could flip a coin. Tails. And just like that, we switched directions for the next 2 weeks, but not without a slight detour to visit the Taj.
Iâm order to do so, we had to stop in a city called Aligarh the next night. I sincerely hope that for the rest of my life I donât ever, ever, have to step foot in a city as loud and shitty as Aligarh ever again. Entering the city was an onslaught. It was a âsmallâ city by Indian standards with only a few million people, but withno main roads. At least not in the conventional sense... We got trapped in a network of alleyways that were just chock-full of people and motorcycles and raging with a +100db cacophony. We couldnât stop, turn, or speed up. Just trapped, moving slower than waking pace. I started to notice as our weekâs yoga retreat was wearing off, how a vein in Chrisâ forehead would bulge at times like this.
We finally arrived to the center and got denied by some 6 different hotels. They claimed they werenât allowed to accept foreigners. They all pointed us to the one that did which was about $35. After a good hour or two Chris had the good idea to book one on Booking.com and persuade them to accept us. It turned out to be a non-issue and they hurriedly over-accommodated what were probably the first white dudes to stay there.
We bussed to the Taj and back. An almost equally long and stressful experience. With large, popular tourist sites like the Taj, sometimes I feel like Iâm just checking a box, and others Iâm genuinely stunned. For me, the Taj was somewhere in between.
After all the selfies with Indians and the intensity of the day, Chrisâs vein was bulging a bit. It was time for a beer. Itâd been a few days, and after all, heâs German. Alcohol can be somewhat faux pas in India. So, after some searching we found Aligarhâs small unmarked shop. It was a dark, smelly enclosed box with chicken wiring separating the shopkeeper/bartender. They sold beer- two kinds. Standing behind us were probably about a dozen Indian men. They cannot drink on the street and certainly not in front of their wives. Here they were after work drinking as fast as possible before going home. Chug, burp, chug, gasp for air, burp... repeat. All the while, staring at two white dudes.
We stayed in our hotel room for those two nights. In India, whole families will share a single bed, so for us there was obviously just one. Chris was European and very confused as to why I wasnât keen to share the bed with him. But, as I left him with the bed for himself, he didnât protest. We had a good stay there, but when we left, the manager insisted we leave a 5 star review. He explained a few times in broken English that the checkout process IS a 5 star review. I probably would have if theyâd asked casually, but instead played dumb and politely let it be know that we were leaving anyways. Kind of the opposite of the Hotel California... I suppose weâre still checked in there.
Leaving Aligarh was also a trying experience. Iâd accidentally navigated us down a market street. It was a war zone of vehicles and stalls. As it eased up towards the end I shouted to Chris: âI only got hit twice, how about you??â âMe too!â He responded with a forced smile. His vein looked like it was throbbing.
We set off once more into the craziness that is India. That afternoon I watched a monkey jump itâs way up to the top of some buildings armed with a crowbar. We rode through a village where they were widening the road. They had simply bulldozed through the fronts of homes and businesses almost seemingly without announcement. There were mounds of rubble and debris. There were bedrooms and backs of shops exposed. âWas there a war here??â Chris asked.
In India the horns are unbelievably loud. I had armed myself with a 140db horn from a bike shop in Delhi. Aside from notifying a close by tuk-tuk or to alert a nonchalant cow that I was overtaking, it was pretty futile endeavor. 140db just blends into the background noise of vehicles, motorcycles, and truck horns.
One day I decided to try a humorous sign in order to dissuade all of the honking. It said âhorn if you masturbate.â My thinking was that people would honk less to avoid admitting such a thing. In reality, very few in this region could read or understand English. The only person that commented all day was the affiliate from the hotel chain that morning as he was from an English speaking state. âWow!â âThatâs a very strong message!â Heâd said thinking I was gallivanting around the globe promoting the cause of masturbation.
In the end, the only satisfying way to keep my hearing was to wear earplugs all day. Things were still loud, but at least I didnât feel my ear drums piercing every time a truck or bus overtook.
Chris and I had other challenges to contend with also. Second to noise was definitely staring. Iâm sure youâve rumors of the attention one receives as a foreigner in India. Actually, a staring contest with an Indian isnât too difficult. But when itâs a crowd thatâs something else. Iâd have to recruit Chrisâs assistance quite often, and him mine. Weâd have code words and on que weâd pivot into a power stance and start an intense staring war of attrition. Sometimes theyâd laugh and cease. Usually not. Usually they just kept at it without so much as a blink.
We camped a total of three times in India. India was probably not the best region for solitary camping because of the billion plus people or so. But not impossible. The second night weâd scoped a spot, but wanted to wait on the road until it was dark enough to go camp in that spot unseen.
Some folks approached us that didnât know any English. The road we were on had probably never been cycled by any westerners. Now add to that the fact that most people here had never even seen a white person in their lives. They were understandably confused as to why we were here on funny bicycles with funny bags, wearing funny plastic hats standing on the side of the road in the middle of fuck-all-nowhere as the sun goes down. We could only communicate a little bit. So I google translated âWhat year is it?â For them to see. I was shocked when they responded. I then translated John Connorâs dramatic speech in the Terminator movie about how he is from the future and how only those who join me will survive. They were even more confused. We rode off a few moments later and camped.
The third time we camped was less intentional. Chris had gotten a bit of the âDelhi bellyâ and hadnât been feeling too hot. We reserved a hotel room online that afternoon so he could have a sanctuary to recoup. Unfortunately, when we arrived there was a wedding there. We hardly needed to go to the reception to know it was overbooked. They were no help, so Chris got on the phone with Booking.com while I scouted out the other 6 hotels in town. It was wedding season and they were all full.
Normally it wouldnât be a huge issue, but there were no other cities nearby, Chris was sick, and it was now dark. I went back to the reception and explained how we were stuck, they had overbooked us, and I pleaded for their help finding in a place to stay. Now I understand cultural barriers, but this should be a no brainer to at least make an effort. But they wouldnât budge to contact anyone. The manager told me in front of some 20 people that had gathered that it was my problem, not his. I lost my cool and spewed some obscenities on him and left not without an inappropriate hand gesture. It was the second time Iâd unloaded on someone on the trip... The first had hit me with a motorcycle. It was time to get out of India I realized as we rode off to go camp.
I donât much like finding spots to camp in the dark. You donât have a great idea of whatâs around you or how exposed youâll be in the morning. After probably 2 hours searching in the dark we finally settled on a sugar cane field, one of the few not flooded. Chris staked out his sanctuary a ways away. He woke up many times that night to go pray.
In the morning, it didnât take long before we were spotted. There were about half a dozen teens outside our tents. I was midway into changing into riding shorts. âCan you distract them??â I asked Chris. âIâm a bit naked at the moment...â
By the time we had fully packed up, half the village had gathered to watch the show. Maybe 30-50 people. One or two spoke English. Videos were taken, questions were answered. I signed my autograph into a school notebook. They were quite funny and excitable. Before we left,I decided to indulge them.... âAlright...â âOne selfie!â I shouted. The crowd erupted and we took some group photos before finally breaking free and riding off.
That last day riding in India went fairly smoothly. Or maybe weâd already been baptized in fire. Or better yet, smoke. A man that day came up to compliment my bike and âstrong lungs.â Hardly, I thought giving the equivalent hundreds of smog cigarettes Iâd inhaled in the past few days.
We got a drink and snack by a stall before crossing the river border to Nepal. With a wrapper and empty bottle in hand, the shopkeep and patrons pointed to the field of rubbish off to the side. They couldnât understand why I wasnât willing to add to the years of accumulation and I wasnât prepared to explain my own convictions. Again, the world of India and itâs culture are tough for me to understand, and given all the staring, I would say the inverse is probably true as well. Backpacking India had been a great experience, but cycling it was undoubtably trying. I could sense this with Chris as well... His vein had been pulsating all the way to the border. It was time to go.