On to Dharamsala

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Our driver picks us up at 6:45am to usher us out of the hell that is Delhi and off to greener pastures. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was signed up for an 11 hour car ride. Surviving off of about 6 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours I was exhausted and my head rolled from side to side as I tried to sleep in the front seat. Sleep was impossible, even when I started to drift off to sleep I was thrust back into consciousness when the driver (who I called Ted in my head) laid on the horn. In India, the horn is almost constantly going! I have noticed this in the previous taxi/tuk-tuk rides but I wasn’t trying to sleep in those vehicles and this was going to drive me mad. When approaching a vehicle, the driver gives a quick honk (if you’re lucky, more often it’s a series of honks or one long ear wrenching sound) of the horn to let the car/bus/truck/motorcycle know you are planning to pass it. They do this because no one observes the lanes on the road?! They may as well not be there…

We make a couple stops to eat and stretch our legs along the way—in reality none of us want to get out of the car we just want to press on but I think Ted wanted to stretch his legs. Oh, and by the way. Ted speaks very little English—very little. He kept saying things to me and was a little irritated I wasn’t catching on but I was too tired to care much at this point. I did make the mistake of turning down the air conditioning and he gave me a look as if to say, ‘never touch an Indian man’s air conditioning.’ So that was the end of my shotgun duties. My favorite pit stop we made was to a roadside mosque; at least I think that’s what it was. Oh yeah, Ted’s Muslim, at one point I was talking to my traveling companions and said the word “bomb” but in a friendly context and Ted shot me a look…I guess we’re not okay with that yet. Anyways, we stop and Ted encourages us to get out at this makeshift mosque place and we oblige. Everyone is staring at us…we sort of stroll over to the entrance and Ted starts motioning to me to take off my sandals and follow his lead—I shoot a quick look to Marchin, one of my traveling companions and he comes with me. We follow Ted’s lead and wash our hands then walk through some water, as Ted did. Then he shows us the scarf bin and motions that we need to put scarves on our heads to enter the prayer area. Does Ted realize we aren’t Muslims?? Marchin and I don’t want to be rude so we follow and sit in back and listen to them read something, I’m sure it’s just their favorite article out of Muslim Weekly or maybe the Sunday comics. We sit for a few minutes then awkwardly get up and leave. We did it for Ted and now we’re done. Finally…back to driving—never thought I’d be happy to be back in the honking car.

After several hours on the “highways” we finally see mountains in the distance and this excites us. We are anxious to get into the mountains and leave all the crud behind us. We begin our ascent and immediately the filth fades away. Actual green trees start to appear! Garbage is disappearing and I’m starting to feel better about this trip to India. The roads are winding and Ted seems to be increasing his speeds through the hairpins. I’m almost too happy to care. The landscape is lush and green and the foliage is reminiscent of a tropical locale. A few more hours of winding through the mountains and dropping into valleys only to go up into the next of hills and finally we see a sign for Dharamsala . The air is beginning to cool and we actually roll down the windows and get a whiff of mountain air and it feels great. Ted is pointing out places of interest, but we have no idea what he’s saying but we’re happy because he’s gotten us here. At the 11 hour mark we pull up to the end of the road where we have to hike the last bit to make it to our home for the next 4 weeks. We say good bye to Ted and hello to our hosts. I am overjoyed to put my backpack down on my bed and breathe a sigh of relief. My day was filled with a lot of angst and frustrations with India—and with myself for subjecting myself to this torture…but arriving here and watching the sun lazily fall behind the mountains as I’m waiting for my dinner (homemade soup and bread by the German woman who runs the house where I’m staying) I can say it was all worth it…

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Photos

Whiskey!
As soon as I read the sign Ted says, "Whiskey Risky!!" Some of the only english he spoke.

Road Block 2 - Cow
This was a common occurance