We travel to tell harrowing stories about transit that we find hard to believe ourselves. Like the night bus from Pushkar to Agra, with sleeping berths so grotty, the headrest was slick with hair grease. Bouncing and swerving so badly, we spent a fair amount of time airborne, backs pounded as if by an overzealous nanny burping a newborn.
Or multi-leg journeys that stretch hours and days beyond their intended length. Like our recent cross-country journey from the Andaman Islands to Rishikesh, just in time for Passover. It started with an easy-enough afternoon ferry ride to Port Blair, where we stayed overnight in order to catch our morning flight. A 7:45am pick-up kicked off the second leg of the journey, onto a plane to Calcutta and, after time out for an authentic Bengali lunch feast, to the train station for an 18-hour overnight ride to New Delhi. The original plan was to arrive in the late morning on Monday, and take a bus to Rishikesh straight away.
I suppose it was a good thing that the Naxalites decided to bomb the track at Gaya, because it forced our train to take a detour that added nearly four hours to our ride. The delay forced us to stay a night in Delhi, heads still swaying with the rythym of the train as we walked the streets. The good night's sleep wasn't quite enough to brace us for the next day, which we thought might be the easy part.
After negotiating the mammoth Delhi bus terminal and searching in vain for a comfy bus directly to Rishikesh, we ended up on a private "deluxe" bus to Haridwar, the closest serviceable town. The promised five hours streched past the six that the guidebook suggests to over seven, seldom reaching the bus' 30 mph top speed. When we were done winding through Delhi's interminable suburbs, we got stuck behind a caravan of tractor-pulled sugarcane carts, and so on.
When we reached Haridwar, a taciturn bicycle rickshaw wallah deposited us at the bus stand, where we found out it would be at least another 30 minute wait for the Rs. 15 (~$0.40) bus. It was 6:30pm on our fourth day of transit.
We all have our breaking points - times or days when the world is too much and we can't deal with it anymore. In transit, this usually means forsaking the cheapest solution, which invariably involves a test of patience, for the easiest one, which is inevitably more expensive. Amberly was having one of those days. Not taking these moments personally or out on each other has been the key to our successful travel together. So, knowing better than to put up even the faintest of arguments, I marched behind her over to the taxi stand and gladly forked over the Rs. 460 (~$11) for a smooth and quick ride to our end, at last.
With time, these memories fade into stories fondly told with friends and designed to get a reaction. The lessons are less the "shoulda coulda woulda" kind, and more what we learn about ourselves, our limits, and our coping skills at these times. This is also why we travel.
April 12, 2006
April 10, 2006
A vacation within a vacation
Sometimes you need a break. As previously promised, we've been idling on a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. After cold mountains, smoggy cities and too much transit, we finally found some respite on a hammock by a beach, with a coconut in one hand and a book in the other.
If you spin your globe a few degrees east of the Indian coastline, you might spot the Andamans as specks out there, not far from the epicenter of the tsunami of a couple years back. Most of the chain was relatively unharmed by the tidal waves - our guest house saw a beer cooler and an oven float away - but the crash in tourism really hurt the local economy. So we went on a relief mission to prop it up. This was the humanitarian portion of our trip, really.
Havelock Island is one of the most accessible and visited of the chain. While it is the most touristed, it is still a backwater with frequent shortages of just about anything except fish. As you might imagine, we ate a lot of fish. And laid around in hammocks. The island is relatively sheltered from the open sea by surrounding islands, so the surf was negligible, the water cristaline and the temperature bath-like. It was like the island was surrounded by a giant heated pool. We went snorkeling in a 'Finding Nemo'-like environment one day. The going was difficult.
Seriously, though, the downtime proved a great time to do a little bit of meditating, both of the quiet-sitting and mulling-over-your-life type. A kind of peace has settled over me and I got a glimpse of what I would like my life to be. In some ways, this was no profound insight. The elements have been there before - socially conscious concerns, including sustainable agriculture, a degree of income independence, and a strong desire to father a family - but the path to unifying them became a little clearer last week.
I'm writing this from Delhi, where we are taking a brief break from our three-day sojourn to Rishikesh to celebrate Passover. As we've descended into the thick of India's cities (Calcutta for a few hours and Delhi overnight), a broad smile has come over my face. I love this place! Both of us were sort of dreading leaving the quiet easiness of island life, but as we sped by, and later walked through, the city streets teeming with life, my blood starting pumping again. It's hard to believe it's been nearly two months and harder yet to grasp the reality of returning in about two weeks. I've absorbed so much, but it's only a scratch on the surface of this amazing country. So it goes.
If you spin your globe a few degrees east of the Indian coastline, you might spot the Andamans as specks out there, not far from the epicenter of the tsunami of a couple years back. Most of the chain was relatively unharmed by the tidal waves - our guest house saw a beer cooler and an oven float away - but the crash in tourism really hurt the local economy. So we went on a relief mission to prop it up. This was the humanitarian portion of our trip, really.
Havelock Island is one of the most accessible and visited of the chain. While it is the most touristed, it is still a backwater with frequent shortages of just about anything except fish. As you might imagine, we ate a lot of fish. And laid around in hammocks. The island is relatively sheltered from the open sea by surrounding islands, so the surf was negligible, the water cristaline and the temperature bath-like. It was like the island was surrounded by a giant heated pool. We went snorkeling in a 'Finding Nemo'-like environment one day. The going was difficult.
Seriously, though, the downtime proved a great time to do a little bit of meditating, both of the quiet-sitting and mulling-over-your-life type. A kind of peace has settled over me and I got a glimpse of what I would like my life to be. In some ways, this was no profound insight. The elements have been there before - socially conscious concerns, including sustainable agriculture, a degree of income independence, and a strong desire to father a family - but the path to unifying them became a little clearer last week.
I'm writing this from Delhi, where we are taking a brief break from our three-day sojourn to Rishikesh to celebrate Passover. As we've descended into the thick of India's cities (Calcutta for a few hours and Delhi overnight), a broad smile has come over my face. I love this place! Both of us were sort of dreading leaving the quiet easiness of island life, but as we sped by, and later walked through, the city streets teeming with life, my blood starting pumping again. It's hard to believe it's been nearly two months and harder yet to grasp the reality of returning in about two weeks. I've absorbed so much, but it's only a scratch on the surface of this amazing country. So it goes.
March 31, 2006
Why We Travel, part one
This is a thread of thought I've been contemplating. It is to be continued.
We travel to meet new people, see new places and experience new things. We travel to share stories the likes of which you don't get in books. Ultimately, we travel to understand our world, and hopefully ourselves, a little better. The story of our Sikkim trek holds a little bit of all of this. This is the vignette of how we ended up on the top of a mountain, next to a small monastery, in a village of sixteen families by dint of a headache, a visiting Lama, and a broken boot.
We wanted to do a modest low-altitude trek to see some historic Buddhist monasteries in Sikkim, formerly part of a Nepali empire and home to a strain of Tibetan Buddhism. All descriptions we could find made the loop sound modestly strenuous, but eminently doable. Scampering down the first long shortcut through beautifully dense semi-tropical vegetation, Amberly got a migraine. Her medication turned out to be less than effective when followed by more blood-pumping hiking instead of a 10 minute lie-down. When we reached the road again, it was hot and completely devoid of shade. We decided to hitch the first ride that came by. How could we know who it would be?
We arrived at Khatchapuri Lake in the entourage of the Lama of Ladakh, and quickly gravitated to the handful of backpacking Westerners watching the festivities. Before we knew it, we were lugging our pared-down gear up a mountain overlooking the lake, sipping tea and waiting for our host’s sister to vacate her room so we might stay in it. Run by the Dalai Lama’s former personal chef, our mountain oasis had 360° views of the Himalaya foothills, prepared meals and a laid-back group of fellow travelers with whom to relax and share stories. Then and there, we decided to forego the rest of our trek and stay a while.
It was a good thing, too, because when I shed my hiking boots in our room, I discovered the sole of the left boot was anxious to separate from its leather upper. I had taken this trusty pair along on its last outing, conscious of the fact that, through age and a bit of neglect on my end, they would not be lasting much longer. Now, they were a heel-seam away from being utterly useless. By the time I went down and back next morning for a meditation at the Lake, the attached part of the seam was down to an inch. So long, boot and so long, trek!
Over a fire that night, built and fed by an eager group of children, we settled into the unending flow of conversation that transpires among travelers. We talked politics, local customs, personal backgrounds and wacky experiences. We even found eerie connections amongst ourselves. Perhaps these are folks we might not have encountered had we stayed home. We likely wouldn’t have spoken if we did. This is why we travel.
For a slightly different and expanded telling of these events, take a look at this post.
Postscript: A few of the folks we met on the mountain shared a jeep back to town with us a couple of days later. We shared a drawn-out meal (if not entirely by design) and a cake for my birthday. Amberly and Jenny found a great exploding and singing candle for me. What a treat!
We travel to meet new people, see new places and experience new things. We travel to share stories the likes of which you don't get in books. Ultimately, we travel to understand our world, and hopefully ourselves, a little better. The story of our Sikkim trek holds a little bit of all of this. This is the vignette of how we ended up on the top of a mountain, next to a small monastery, in a village of sixteen families by dint of a headache, a visiting Lama, and a broken boot.
We wanted to do a modest low-altitude trek to see some historic Buddhist monasteries in Sikkim, formerly part of a Nepali empire and home to a strain of Tibetan Buddhism. All descriptions we could find made the loop sound modestly strenuous, but eminently doable. Scampering down the first long shortcut through beautifully dense semi-tropical vegetation, Amberly got a migraine. Her medication turned out to be less than effective when followed by more blood-pumping hiking instead of a 10 minute lie-down. When we reached the road again, it was hot and completely devoid of shade. We decided to hitch the first ride that came by. How could we know who it would be?
We arrived at Khatchapuri Lake in the entourage of the Lama of Ladakh, and quickly gravitated to the handful of backpacking Westerners watching the festivities. Before we knew it, we were lugging our pared-down gear up a mountain overlooking the lake, sipping tea and waiting for our host’s sister to vacate her room so we might stay in it. Run by the Dalai Lama’s former personal chef, our mountain oasis had 360° views of the Himalaya foothills, prepared meals and a laid-back group of fellow travelers with whom to relax and share stories. Then and there, we decided to forego the rest of our trek and stay a while.
It was a good thing, too, because when I shed my hiking boots in our room, I discovered the sole of the left boot was anxious to separate from its leather upper. I had taken this trusty pair along on its last outing, conscious of the fact that, through age and a bit of neglect on my end, they would not be lasting much longer. Now, they were a heel-seam away from being utterly useless. By the time I went down and back next morning for a meditation at the Lake, the attached part of the seam was down to an inch. So long, boot and so long, trek!
Over a fire that night, built and fed by an eager group of children, we settled into the unending flow of conversation that transpires among travelers. We talked politics, local customs, personal backgrounds and wacky experiences. We even found eerie connections amongst ourselves. Perhaps these are folks we might not have encountered had we stayed home. We likely wouldn’t have spoken if we did. This is why we travel.
For a slightly different and expanded telling of these events, take a look at this post.
Postscript: A few of the folks we met on the mountain shared a jeep back to town with us a couple of days later. We shared a drawn-out meal (if not entirely by design) and a cake for my birthday. Amberly and Jenny found a great exploding and singing candle for me. What a treat!
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