It seems a frequent occurrence that I have the desire to blog about my experiences here in India and the thought arises "how can I possibly convey that experience to anyone who hasn't lived it themselves?"
This is the case with the epic day I had yesterday.
I think of this trip as three phases; phase 1 was the time in Sri Lanka, phase 2 was all of the movement through Tamil Nadu (five locales in three weeks), phase 3 will be five weeks in Rishikesh.
In order to travel from Pondicherry to Rishikesh we spent one night in an airport hotel in Chennai and flew from there to Delhi on a 6:15 AM flight.
For reasons I don't understand Swamiji was under the impression that the drive from Delhi airport to Rishikesh would only take 3 1/2 hours. Our expectation set we arranged for a driver to pick us up at the airport.
As we began the drive through Delhi I was pleasantly surprised to see a significant difference in the area around the airport which encompassed the first 35 or 40 minutes of our drive.
There were neatly manicured lawns, bushes and parks. There was almost no liter and I didn't see a single cow or person who looked downtrodden on the side of the road. This was quite a contrast to when I was here three years ago.
Within 10 minutes of leaving the airport we encountered our first traffic jam. Highways in India do have designated lanes. The same dotted lines separate the lanes as they do at home but in India they seem to function as mere suggestion, as opposed to the rigid dividers in America. Here people drive wherever they can fit, as opposed to fitting between the lines.
There were an inordinate number of traffic circles and turns that the driver took in that first 40 or 50 minutes. It seemed an extremely complex route; I was astounded that he knew where he was going from memory.
The density of the traffic would thin for a minute or two and then thicken again. All the while the driver, who said his name was Bobby, threaded his way through and around all the other vehicles.
After the first 40 minutes of the drive the Delhi that I remembered reappeared.
How can I explain the shanty towns that we drove past? I am at a loss to explain what these "homes" looked like or what they were constructed from.
All I can say is that I know squalor when I see it. I know abject poverty when I see it. The conditions I observed was a level beyond that description.
The ubiquitous well-maintained roads of Tamil Nadu became a thing of the past. Here in the north the road suddenly becomes not a road. There will be pavement and all of a sudden there simply isn't any and you're driving over dirt and rocks; then the pavement will reappear.
For the first hour and a half the traffic, turning, honking and weaving around the other cars felt relentless.
About two hours into the drive we were finally beyond Delhi and the adjacent major town. Around this time I saw a mile marker which indicated that that Dehradun was 204 km away.
On my last visit I flew from Delhi to Dehradun, the closest airport to Rishikesh; because of that I knew how far we had to go on this leg of the journey.
204 km is about 150 miles. In America you could drive on an interstate and cover that distance in three hours if you were going slowly and took time out to go to the bathroom, as I often do. Having just spent the last three weeks driving around Tamil Nadu I knew that 204 kilometers was going to take a while.
We began traveling through the smaller towns I've come to recognize as distinctly India. Shops with their fronts open to the street, steel gates rolled down for the closed shops, tea stalls, vendors selling chips and snacks in little packages all connected to each other, cows and men.
Many many men. To my eyes it looked like packs of men in the streets. In some of the towns that we drove through the masculine energy was intense and a bit disconcerting.
Groups of men sitting in tea stalls, groups of men standing on the street, men riding motorcycles all around us, men in the cars and trucks all around us.
Every once in a while I could pick out a female form amongst all of those people. Never did I see one of those female forms smiling. But then again the men don't smile much either.
One of the big contrasts between Sri Lanka and India is the difference in smiles. In Sri Lanka people smile all the time, here not so much.
At hour three it was time for a bathroom break and some food since we haven't eaten yet that day.
Bobby (not his real name I'm quite sure) took us to an Indian version of the highway rest stop. It was clean and I scored some actual boiled vegetables which thrilled my digestive system.
At that point we were about 150 km from Haridwar, the town that I knew to be only 25 km south of Rishikesh.
This is the case with the epic day I had yesterday.
I think of this trip as three phases; phase 1 was the time in Sri Lanka, phase 2 was all of the movement through Tamil Nadu (five locales in three weeks), phase 3 will be five weeks in Rishikesh.
In order to travel from Pondicherry to Rishikesh we spent one night in an airport hotel in Chennai and flew from there to Delhi on a 6:15 AM flight.
For reasons I don't understand Swamiji was under the impression that the drive from Delhi airport to Rishikesh would only take 3 1/2 hours. Our expectation set we arranged for a driver to pick us up at the airport.
As we began the drive through Delhi I was pleasantly surprised to see a significant difference in the area around the airport which encompassed the first 35 or 40 minutes of our drive.
There were neatly manicured lawns, bushes and parks. There was almost no liter and I didn't see a single cow or person who looked downtrodden on the side of the road. This was quite a contrast to when I was here three years ago.
Within 10 minutes of leaving the airport we encountered our first traffic jam. Highways in India do have designated lanes. The same dotted lines separate the lanes as they do at home but in India they seem to function as mere suggestion, as opposed to the rigid dividers in America. Here people drive wherever they can fit, as opposed to fitting between the lines.
There were an inordinate number of traffic circles and turns that the driver took in that first 40 or 50 minutes. It seemed an extremely complex route; I was astounded that he knew where he was going from memory.
The density of the traffic would thin for a minute or two and then thicken again. All the while the driver, who said his name was Bobby, threaded his way through and around all the other vehicles.
After the first 40 minutes of the drive the Delhi that I remembered reappeared.
How can I explain the shanty towns that we drove past? I am at a loss to explain what these "homes" looked like or what they were constructed from.
All I can say is that I know squalor when I see it. I know abject poverty when I see it. The conditions I observed was a level beyond that description.
The ubiquitous well-maintained roads of Tamil Nadu became a thing of the past. Here in the north the road suddenly becomes not a road. There will be pavement and all of a sudden there simply isn't any and you're driving over dirt and rocks; then the pavement will reappear.
For the first hour and a half the traffic, turning, honking and weaving around the other cars felt relentless.
About two hours into the drive we were finally beyond Delhi and the adjacent major town. Around this time I saw a mile marker which indicated that that Dehradun was 204 km away.
On my last visit I flew from Delhi to Dehradun, the closest airport to Rishikesh; because of that I knew how far we had to go on this leg of the journey.
204 km is about 150 miles. In America you could drive on an interstate and cover that distance in three hours if you were going slowly and took time out to go to the bathroom, as I often do. Having just spent the last three weeks driving around Tamil Nadu I knew that 204 kilometers was going to take a while.
We began traveling through the smaller towns I've come to recognize as distinctly India. Shops with their fronts open to the street, steel gates rolled down for the closed shops, tea stalls, vendors selling chips and snacks in little packages all connected to each other, cows and men.
Many many men. To my eyes it looked like packs of men in the streets. In some of the towns that we drove through the masculine energy was intense and a bit disconcerting.
Groups of men sitting in tea stalls, groups of men standing on the street, men riding motorcycles all around us, men in the cars and trucks all around us.
Every once in a while I could pick out a female form amongst all of those people. Never did I see one of those female forms smiling. But then again the men don't smile much either.
One of the big contrasts between Sri Lanka and India is the difference in smiles. In Sri Lanka people smile all the time, here not so much.
At hour three it was time for a bathroom break and some food since we haven't eaten yet that day.
Bobby (not his real name I'm quite sure) took us to an Indian version of the highway rest stop. It was clean and I scored some actual boiled vegetables which thrilled my digestive system.
At that point we were about 150 km from Haridwar, the town that I knew to be only 25 km south of Rishikesh.
We had just traveled a fair portion of road that was well-maintained, didn't have traffic and we were cruising along at 60 miles an hour which was great. I thought we would make it in another three hours time.
Back in the car we started to get to a prettier rural area. Many crops and fields of sugarcane. The air was better (did I mention how polluted the air was in Delhi?), the scenery was nice and there was no traffic.
I should mention at this point that Bobby is the calmest wild man I've ever encountered. Some of our other drivers would honk their horns like maniacs. Not Bobby.
He didn't use his horn much, he just went for it.
Passing trucks, cars, buses, auto rickshaws and motorcycles he'd move into oncoming traffic and calmly make them get out of our way through sheer ballsy-ness.
I'll forgo the detail of hours four through seven but I think at this point you get the idea.
Suffice to say that in that time we encountered a political protest, another traffic jam, lots more disappearing/reappearing roads and Bobby's never ending mastery of the Indian road.
We arrived in Rishikesh at the Sivananda ashram before sundown (it is always my strong preference to arrive someplace in India before it's dark); what I found there is a story for another day.
Back in the car we started to get to a prettier rural area. Many crops and fields of sugarcane. The air was better (did I mention how polluted the air was in Delhi?), the scenery was nice and there was no traffic.
I should mention at this point that Bobby is the calmest wild man I've ever encountered. Some of our other drivers would honk their horns like maniacs. Not Bobby.
He didn't use his horn much, he just went for it.
Passing trucks, cars, buses, auto rickshaws and motorcycles he'd move into oncoming traffic and calmly make them get out of our way through sheer ballsy-ness.
I'll forgo the detail of hours four through seven but I think at this point you get the idea.
Suffice to say that in that time we encountered a political protest, another traffic jam, lots more disappearing/reappearing roads and Bobby's never ending mastery of the Indian road.
We arrived in Rishikesh at the Sivananda ashram before sundown (it is always my strong preference to arrive someplace in India before it's dark); what I found there is a story for another day.
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