Peanut butter, blood and pain – a journey to India

The journey from Kathmandu to Varanasi, India turned out to be quite an adventure in more ways than one. Amongst the group I was trekking with in Nepal, George (U.K.) turned out to have approximately the same route planed for India as I. As we both realized that we were travelling into the unknown it felt safer knowing that we would find ourselves lost and confused alongside someone else.

We boarded the bus from Katmandu heading for the border town of Sonauli at 7pm, and it didn’t take us long to realize this was going to be a long bus ride. First of all we were surprised that we actually were assigned seats and felt grateful that we wouldn’t have to spend the night standing, sitting in the aisle or fearing that someone would snatch our seat at the first opportunity. As soon as we sat down thou, the seat didn’t seem like such a god-given gift after all. The seat in itself kept wobbling around as it surely was missing a couple of screws somewhere. The seats of the guys in front of us was just as uncontrollable as ours, which meant that the one in front of me leaned back so far that I could almost use the man’s head as a pillow, whereas the other seat leaned forward in a 45 degree angle leaving the poor guy sitting in it fighting to keep it close to upright the entire journey. The main problem was leg room. When I sat down in my seat as far back as I possibly could – which means your head is 20 cm above the headrest (damn these tiny Asians) – I was still a couple of inches short of being able to fit my legs between my seat and the seat in front of me. The solution turned out to be me twisting my legs behind the seat of the poor guys fighting his seat from squeezing him flat, and George – seated next to the aisle – stretching his legs out into the aisle hoping that it would stay clear of ppl. With that sorted it was time for dinner. I had namely armed myself with the killer combination of a fresh loaf of bread and peanut butter, and made an army of peanut butter sandwiches that would keep me fed all the way to Varanasi. As I happily ate my dinner – to the amusement of my fellow passengers – the roads kept taking a turn for the worse and slowly turning into the now famous Tibetan “roads”. We were tossed and turned left and right, up and down, and I was cursing the armrest towards the window which I knew would be responsible for my bruised arm the next day. It also kept getting colder due to the fact that ppl kept opening up their windows, usually all at the same time, to get some air or to spit. The draft was constant and it felt like someone had put a fan right in front of me. To top it all off, the six guys seated behind us found it amusing to sing Nepalese pop songs to entertain the entire bus. George and I had to face the facts: this was going to be a long bus journey. All we could hope for was some sleep before we got to the border town at 5 am. I reached into my bag and never before have I been so happy to find something pink in my bag, nor did I think anything pink could turn out to be a life saver, my pink ear plugs.

After 10 extremely painful hours on the bus we finally got to the Nepalese side of the Indian border. I was freezing cold, my joints were stiff and deadly painful and the lack of sleep was wearing on me. We got off the bus determined to make our way to the immigration office on our own, and the rickshaw drivers constantly nagging us did not come across as helpful at that time. After wandering around in the dark for a while we understood that we had no concept of which way the border was, let alone how far it would be to walk. We gave in and jumped in a rickshaw, changed our Nepalese rupees into Indian and hoped that we would make it in one piece as the rickshaw rode down a pitch black road with no light indicating we were on the road to the cars and moped passing an inch away from us. It turned out that the border actually was almost a 15 minute ride away and we were glad we didn’t attempt it on foot.

The Nepalese immigration office was hidden away inside a random house in the border town and I’m not sure we would have found it had we not been pointed towards it. Carrying our heavy bags, still half asleep and fairly uncertain what to do how and where, we walked into the gate to “check out” of Nepal. As George walked in front of me, I failed to notice the step up after entering the gate to the immigration office and fell to the ground with no free hands to support myself. My knees and feet took the blow as I felt the concrete scraping its signature into my legs. I stumbled to my feet and made my way into the office. I was wearing black knee-length pants and I felt the blood from my bleeding knees trickle down my legs as I entered immigration to the awaiting officials much amusement. I filled out the required forms, tried to stop the bleeding, felt sorry for myself and entered into no-man’s-land.

The difference between Nepal and India was slight at first, apart from the most obvious aspect of all: the seas of trash floating around everywhere. Being half in a daze I didn’t notice it at first, but it soon came to my attention that I had to mind my step. Cow dung, food, plastic, tins, paper, you name it; absolutely everything! Our next task was to find the Indian immigration office to register our arrival and visas. Before we found the hidden away office we passed customs which consisted of three guys sitting in chairs waiving us along, not bothered to being bothered. The ppl at the immigration office, which we found without realizing that we found it, had the same attitude as the lads at customs and were more annoyed and concerned about us spelling Sonauli the Indian way rather than the Nepalese way (Sunauli). We got accepted (wow) and were now determined to find the bus station to get a bus to Varanasi. We eventually found the right bus after asking around for a bit and occupied a couple of seats just to make sure we actually got some. These seats were sturdy and the legroom was plenty, at least compared to the Nepalese bus. At 7 am the bus departed and there were still a fair amount of free seats still. So far so good I thought to myself as I reached into my bag to have breakfast; a tasty peanut butter sandwich.

As the villages and the countryside passed the bus kept filling up even thou it never stopped. The best and only way to board a bus is at speed, so timing is everything. It is also safe to say that the recognition of the term “full bus” does not exist in this country. When I thought the bus was completely packet as far as my western eyes could see, they still managed to squeeze another 30 ppl on. As we were the only white ppl on the bus we drew a lot of attention and sunglasses are a blessing when having at least 20 pair of eyes fixed on you for about 10 hours. Not only am I white and blond, but I was also breaking a strict cultural rule; I was only wearing a tank top, in other words, my shoulders were showing. At this point we’d reached midday and roasting alive. I was drenched in sweat and thirsty beyond thirsty, and the thought of putting on a t-shirt to shake off some stares would tip me over the top. Since the stops were few and short and everyone was fighting to squeeze one butt cheek on to the corner of a seat, the image of what would happen if I actually left my seat to use the toilet would be close to a stampede. Hence no toilet breaks. I was seated next to the window so I was hoping to get some air, but being a rookie in Indian transportation I wasn’t swift enough to opening the window which slides sideways before the guys in front and back of me had opened theirs, and therefore jammed shut both my sources to fresh air. It was time for lunch and I had another peanut butter sandwich, only this one didn’t do its magic as the others had done. Only 5 more hours to go…

Around 5.30 pm we finally arrived in Varanasi; exhausted, sweaty and tired. We were immediately surrounded by rickshaw drivers wanting to take us to “my friend has nice guesthouse by the ghat, cheap and clean”. This is rickshaw drivers’ language for saying: “this is where I get commission”. Not knowing where we were staying only what area we wanted to stay, we asked one of the drivers to take us in that direction. We got a fair deal and jumped in. Since we hadn’t specified a hotel the driver understood that we had no place to stay and therefore took the opportunity to show us his brother’s hotel in a back alley far away from where we wanted to go. After telling him to get back in the god damned vehicle (?) he took us to the main road and said that it wasn’t possible to drive to that area even thou it was right down the road. So we got out, paid and started walking towards the area which was unreachable with a motorized vehicle, which of course turned out to be bullshit. He only wanted to get rid of us since he wasn’t getting his commission after all. We made our way between mopeds, cars, cycle rickshaws, motor rickshaws, cows, dogs and ppl in streets built wide enough to fit three cars, but the somehow managed to fit six. This is Varanasi for you and we had been warned that the traffic in Varanasi is as crazy as it gets in India. It’s in every way unexplainable; the noise, smell, traffic moving in every direction possible, someone constantly screaming “rickshaw?” for every meter you walk. We had also been told that if we could survive Varanasi we would be fine anywhere in India. At that very moment thou, we weren’t doing that well.

We ended up reaching the area we initially wanted to go to before we got sidetracked by yet another guy telling us that there was a very nice place to stay right around the corner. Reaching desperation and mentally drained from the traffic we decided to check it out. It turned out that right around the corner is a 10 minute walk around many corners before you find yourself far away from what actually was the finish line. Both George and I had lost our patience at this point walking around with our huge backpacks in the humid weather, and we took off heading for the Ganges which we knew would take us back to where we wanted to go. The same guy was following us recommending a place right around the corner for every ghat (platform or steps leading towards the Ganges river) we got to. When we got to the main ghat we popped into the first hotel we reached and asked for a room. The location of the place was good, but the room was shabby as hell. As an extra addition to our lucky streak the biggest Hindu festival, Diwali, was also taking place, where Varanasi – the holiest city for the Hindus – being its main hub. Room prices were therefore at least doubled. We couldn’t care less thou being exhausted, hungry, sweaty and annoyed. We got ourselves sorted and I texted home to inform that I had made it to India safely, but that we weren’t getting a long so far. Thereafter we entered back into the madness hunting for food and we jumped into the first place possible and ordered an Indian thali. As I ate my food, my blood sugar rose and my heart beat settled down I came to realize that this might not be too bad after all. We might even come to learn to understand and appreciate one another, India and I, but nevertheless it takes some getting used to.

I’ll give it four weeks to work its magic.