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Published: February 25th 2010
The time had come to depart from the sweet serenity of the trafficless, small town and somewhat back-in-time feel of the spiritual center that is Rishikesh. Wonderfully, the side of the river that housed my ashram was almost exclusively accessible by foot traffic over a long bridge. As a result, aside from the handful of mopeds that could cross the bridge and the two or three cars that made way through dangerous back roads to get there, it was free of the honking and fumes so closely associated with everywhere else I’ve been. It was really peaceful, and I loved it. Alas, my train departing from Haridwar, a town about an hours drive south of Rishikesh, was coming at midnight and I needed to be there to meet it. I was not at all excited about the prospects of finding transportation to the train station in the dark, especially because the main mode of transport was a motorcade of pushy, all-male rickshaw drivers waiting for occasional pedestrians under a dark parking structure on the other side of the river. I’d only taken a rickshaw in the dark once, and it wasn’t a great experience that I wanted to repeat.
When I’d
arrived at the bus station in Jaipur for my weekend of R&R it was dark. I was expectedly accosted by a number of people offering rickshaw services, and I decided to go with a bicycle instead of auto option since the driver was nice enough looking and offered the cheapest price. I asked if he knew exactly where my hotel was, but he seemed unsure. As we started off he’d asked another driver where my hotel was, to which the other driver responded directly to me that I needed to come with him because my current driver didn’t know where he was going. They spoke back and forth in Hindi, and I was confused as to whether or not they were friends making a deal. Coerced into going with the other driver, I started to get off the rickshaw. My bicycle driver started pedaling, making it apparent that he had not made a deal with this man and didn’t want to lose the sale. I’d never been on a rickshaw at this point and didn’t know the protocol. I did want to get to my hotel as quickly as possible, though, so I decided to go with the new guy.
To my extreme dissatisfaction, however, one of my new driver’s friends jumped in the front seat with him as we took off. I was immediately uncomfortable with the 2 on 1 situation, but, although I can’t imagine not doing this now, didn’t say anything. We drove away and I looked back at the sad countenance on the poorer, bicycle rickshaw driver’s face. Immediately I wished I’d gone with the original plan. We started driving through a mix of back alleys and main roads and, low and behold, had to stop and ask for directions at least four times. At one point the friend that was repeatedly jumping out to ask for directions tried to get into the back seat with me. Had he, there would have been no exit should I have needed one. With as much resolve as I should have used to begin with and have used since, I refused. “No, you sit up front,” I said assertively. After doing so he spent the entire rest of the way abrasively questioning me as to why I wouldn’t allow him to trap me into the back seat. This guy made me really nervous for some reason; in addition
to his gums being stained red and looking like they were bleeding, there was something about the intensity of his yellow eyes and callous smile that was extremely unsettling. He also repeatedly asked me if I liked to smoke joints, so he might have just been high. Either way, I hated the feeling he gave me. When we finally arrived he looked at the palace that was my hotel and, turning his back to the hotel guard that was approaching us, leaned uncomfortably close to me and whispered in a creepy tone, “but misssss, this must be $100 per night. I can take you to another place….” “Um, no, bro,” I said sarcastically, now comfortable in the light and safety of my hotel. “This is my place. Now back up off my shit.” I pushed 50 rupees into his hand and walked into the gates, leaving the guards to deal with his continued protests.
So here I was in Rishikesh, preparing to be in a potentially similar situation, only with an hour of open jungle on both sides of the road between the starting point and destination. I knew that I could take a city bus down to Haridwar
for about fifty cents, but that too would involve being crowded by fare-hungry young men in a dark area to get me to the bus station. Then I thought, “I wonder if one of those cars I’ve seen parked on our side can take me to Haridwar. They clearly got over here somehow!” I enquired with a tour agency next to my ashram and was told that a private car would cost 800 rupees (about $17) and had to leave before dark, as the road becomes extremely dangerous with parading wild elephants and the like after sunset. Also not interested in getting to the exceptionally smelly and chairless bus station 5 hours early, I started looking for other options. “Why don’t I just take you on my moped?” the tour operator said. “We’ll leave right from here, I’ll take you to the bus station on the other side, and make sure you get on the bus to Haridwar. I do it all the time. 150 rupees.” This did solve all of my problems but one: I knew that size of transportation mode matters in a big way on Indian roads, and I was about to agree to get on the
smallest mode of all. I weighed my options for a moment longer. “Ehhh, okay,” I said, “meet you here at 9:00.”
I’m not a fan of motorcycles. I’ve only seen one dead guy before, and he was laying next to the road, still having CPR administered in vein, while his crashed motorcycle lay many feet away from him. Trying to push this image from my mind, I met my driver at the designated time and hopped on the back of his bike. Crossing the long bridge high over dark, rushing water was less than exciting, but he sensed my nervousness and leaned back to say: “Miss, if there’s anything wrong, you tell me, okay?” Okay. When we got into town we started to pick up speed. Honking his mini horn, we weaved in and out of the much bigger cars and trucks around us. I felt like I was part of a vehicular Napoleon complex in action, and I was starting to find it rather amusing.
At one point we sped directly into a busy intersection, and coming
straight at us was a massive delivery truck! At arms length to our immediate left was an almost equally large
truck, and to the right were headlights of a terrifyingly close bus beaming in our direction. There were rickshaws everywhere honking their horns and were headlights all around. Sensing the pending emergency, the truck to our left slammed on its breaks while the truck coming head on flowed suit. My driver hit the gas and made a couple sharp maneuvers, and after a couple more seconds filled with blinding lights and a deafening horns, we were free of the jam. My amazement was not with the fact that we made it out of this unscathed. Instead, I was astonished that - like my chauffer and all Indians in this daily situation - I didn’t even flinch. I surprisingly wholly trusted my driver and all the others to understand their mad world of traffic and my heart didn’t skip a beat. Two weeks ago, I would have had a panic attack. Guess I’m starting to get the hang of this whole India thing.
On the bus to Haridwar I sat next to Ahsu, a thirties-something Indian woman who spoke just enough English to make a combination of speaking and sign language effective. She was wonderful. I learned that she took
an eight hour bus ride from her home in Uttar Pradesh to Rishikesh every 15 days for work, and she agreed that despite having far less money than Americans, Indians are happier people in general. At one point after conversing for a bit she turned to me and said, “You come to my house?” Assuming she was joking, I replied with “Yeah, sure, lets go!” An elated expression came across her face, at which time I had to do some emergency backpedaling. “I have a train to Varanasi in two hours, I can’t,” I said. “It’s no problem,” she countered, “You just change,” and then shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “what is this ‘schedule’ you foreigners are always trying to follow, anyway?” I explained and she understood that my family needed to know where I was and that taking a seven hour bus ride to a mystery location in the middle of the night wasn’t an option. Despite this reality, I really wanted to; Indians are known for their incredible hospitality and spur of the moment invitations. I’ve heard lots of stories about meals and even weekends that travelers have unexpectedly spent at the homes of gracious locals,
My Package
The Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman era post office rips off a piece of cloth, hand-stitches it together, melts a sticky substance and then stamps the stick onto the seams. No UPS envelopes up here!and I’ve wished that I was under different circumstances so I could safely take up one of the offers. Unfortunately, I was not, so instead we just joked about the boys in front of us and took pictures of each other. As a parting gift, she gave me a Cadbury chocolate bar, some breath mints, and well wishes.
Reflecting on my Jaipur experience, I’d determined on the bus ride with Ashu that I would only take bicycle rickshaws whenever feasible going forward. I reasoned that they not only are more environmentally friendly than autorickshaws, but they also support people in a lower echelon of income and can only seat me and one other person - the guy pedaling the bike. Safety first! According to plan, when I got off the bus I chose an elderly man with a bicycle rickshaw to take me to the train station. I agreed to his offer of a 50 rupee ride and we set off. I sat back and watched him in amazement; this guy was rather feeble and was working really, really hard. He was up off his seat the whole distance, pushing ever harder through potholes and up inclines to a
destination miles away. I reflected on the relative ease with which people earn a living in the States and, as I have many times on this and all my journeys to developing countries, felt guilty for knowing that I had more money in my purse than he makes in a year. When we arrived, I gave him double the agreed upon price and walked away. He made some audible noise in surprise and when I looked back I saw him repeatedly touching the 100 rupee bill from his forehead to his handlebars. I wanted to feel good about myself, but I just felt worse; in the end I’d given this man a measly $2. And so it goes.
Despite ending my journey on a gloomy note, I must say that my unexpectedly long stay in Rishikesh was nothing short of amazing. Although I came down with another fever that knocked me out for a day or so, my week there was filled with some of the most introspective, intense, and wonderful experiences I’ve ever had. These are experiences of such a personal nature that they will not be shared with the masses, but let it suffice to say that
I realized in the end that this was the India I was looking for. If I were forced to leave today, I would feel nothing but gracious content for what I have seen, felt, and come to understand here.
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Lonna
non-member comment
WOW! again
You are amazing! I probably would have loved joining you in Rishikesh, sounds like my kind of spot. So glad you are in contact with the world again, be hearing from you again real soon. M