A Day of Traveling in India

The hero of the day ended up being our cook, Raju. He found us a rickshaw driver who would bring us to the train station at the early hour of 5AM. These arrangements were made, to my chagrin, at around 9PM the night before. At 5am, Jalandhar City felt more like a country town than a city, with deserted streets, insect noises, and few lights. I felt slightly cool in a sweater and jeans.


We rode the Shtabadi (I actually think I spelled this right!) train to New Delhi. The trip took 4-5 hours. I wore my large sunglasses, a must for me when I travel anywhere in India, so I can stare at people who stare at me, without my feeling awkward. (I highly suspect that if I stared openly back at the "starer", without sunglasses, that it would not affect the behavior.) One behavior I noticed was that newcomers to my compartment in the train would give my feet a long look...like 30 seconds! I guess white feet look equally fascinating as a white face!


This train ride passed peacefully, we were served tea twice, and a breakfast of some spicy potato and bread and with jam. I dozed, chatted with Navjot, but mostly dozed.


Arriving at the New Delhi train station jolted me to the realities of urban India that I am still adapting to: noisy, exhaust-belching vehicles, and a high density of people. Loud throat clearing and attention-getting yells and bellows joined the revving, honking vehicles to create, in my perception, a very chaotic soundscape. Navjot got in a long line to acquire a pre-paid taxi (autorickshaw) and I found six inches of concrete to sit on, and surrounded myself with our luggage. The sun felt too hot on my face; this train station seemed like a hell on earth. In front of me, 4 lanes of vehicles beeped and inched their way to an unseen exit. Unregistered taxi drivers hovered around me, hoping I would try to negotiate a quicker departure. Other patrons of the station were weaving around the bumper to bumper car lines, they were entering and exiting the wide station entrance in continuous swarms.


Being seated helped me to acclimate myself to the surroundings as well as I could. After about 20 min, Navjot and I squeezed our large suitcase into a tiny storage area behind our seats, and we sat in the back seat of one of India's "improved" autorickshaws, bright green with a bright yellow cover. Picture a smart car with the bright colors, except with 3 wheels and no doors (like a certain kind of jeep,) with steering handles more similar to a bicycle than a car and you have the image of an autorickshaw. But what makes these autorickshaws "improved" is not their fresh paint jobs, it is their fuel. They use CNG/natural gas for their fuel, which makes for easier breathing which I appreciated through my calm stomach and uncomplaining head as we rode to the airport. The traffic seemed normal by my standards, due to our wisdom (luck!) to travel on Sunday. :)


When we reached the airport, we had 4 hours to kill. We ate lunch in clean airport restaurant. It is the ONLY meal I have eaten in New Delhi that hasn't given me Delhi-belly. After lunch we crunched onto a transport bus. There was an flat area towards the front of the bus. I just sat on the large suitcase, which, over this trip, came to be called "Big Red." I was surrounded by more luggage, but two more people managed to cram themselves on each side of me.


We flew on Air India, and our plane was very comfortable: a TV for everyone, wide seats: I was fatigued from the travel, so I got caught up in a "chick flick," hahaha. It is amazing how tiring travel can be because most of the time I am sitting somewhere and being moved by something else. On the plane I attributed it to that practically invisible stress I feel when traveling in other countries: there is so much I don't know: I cannot anticipate or picture just how I will get from one place to the other, and what will it look like? So many things are unknown, but I don't really feel the strain of such anxiety; only a sleepy fatigue.


This is getting long-winded, so suffice to say, we landed safely, the evening of March 1st, we arrived at our new home for the next four days, The Hotel Hindustan International. Whoo!