Zen and the Joy of Indian Bus Rides

Life is good. Traveling solo is definitely the only way to go. I have been enjoying it a lot. It seems that there is very little time alone when you are constantly meeting travelers and you can always pick the perfect time to part ways and leave on a high note. I have been trying to master the art of "leaving on a high note" actually. It has been awhile since my last post but I must say that this is a good thing. I don't have too much time to sit in a cyber cafe and blog although I really need to. I don't keep a journal or diary or notes so this is all I have. I will try to recap the past two weeks as best I can.

Srinagar to Delhi:
Getting out of Srinagar was a complete hassle. The road was blocked south to Jammu and there was rioting downtown. While I wasn't near any of the fighting, I was stuck. Sure enough I had to take a flight from Srinagar to Delhi. The airport security was tight since it was a war-town city but amazingly, it still was not as bad as the United States. I don't think they have the scanners and sniffers and x-rays that they do back home. The flight was simple and easy and we even had a religious leader on our plane who blessed the flight or something of that nature. I felt good to get out of Kashmir but Delhi is always a headache. Luckily, I only had to bear it for a few hours. I got a bus ticket to Dharamsala and headed off that night.

Delhi to Dharamsala:
Ok, I thought the bus ride from Manali to Leh was bad. This bus trip was worse. What should have been about 11 hours up to Dharamsala turned out to be about 22 hours. The first six hours involved standing on a curb in Delhi and waiting, in monsoon rain, for the bus to even show up. I didn't have a rain cover for my backpack so all my clothes and books got soaked. As the sun started to go down, we decided to move to a covered gas station and continue our wait. I was just about to lose it when the bus showed up. It was full of people and there were not enough seats for all of us. On top of that some of the seats were soaked from the monsoon rains coming through the windows. Since we were the newbies on the bus, this was our only option.

Sitting in a small puddle of water on the bus, I decided to take a Valium. This helped for about an hour and then the heavy rain started. I was sitting in the back so the ride was bumpy and the collected water in the overhead luggage racks (which ended just above my seat) began to rain down on my lap. This was exaggerated every time the bus went up and incline on the road. I was completely soaked since I was sitting on my rain jacket to protect my ass from getting wet. The only option was to open the umbrella. This turned out to be quite humorous for everyone else on the bus, seeing the foreigner with an umbrella just getting dumped on from the water in the luggage rack but I was losing it. It is a strange feeling trying to keep yourself together and not sure what would happen if you actually did snap on the bus. For a good couple hours the umbrella held up and kept me relatively dry but sure enough, the Indian made umbrella started to leak like Chinese water torture on my head. I am suprised that I kept it together for so long.

In these situations, it is best to just sit back and accept your fate. The Indians do it, so I did the same. Everything was wet. Books, soaked. Toiletries, soaked. Everything. We finally made it though and I got a decent room in Bhagsu outside of McLeod Ganj. I just handed my bag to my guesthouse and told them to wash everything. I then slept for about 14 hours in my bathing suit.

Kashmir: War and Boredom

This was the message I got from my mother this morning:

SEAN,
THE BBC HAS SAID THAT KASMIR IS VERY UNSTABLE AND THAT THE FIGHTING HAS INCREASED ALL OVER NORTHERN iNDIA. PLEASE LEAVE. MOM

Well, I have decided to leave but not because of any fear for my safety. I have been staying on a house boat on Nigeen Lake in Srinagar for the past couple days. While the lake is beautiful, peaceful and relaxing, the rest of the town is on curfew and pretty much dead. The food supply has been cut off by Hindu protesters in Jammu and food is getting short. No more eggs for breakfast, or meat for dinner. The tourism here is almost non-existent and the heavy military presence doesn't make walking around town too fun.

You can take small paddle boats to various other houseboats on the lake, bypassing the road. I know a handful of people on the lake but last night my bad luck struck me. It was about 1 a.m. on a fairly large, completely deserted lake. I was on my paddle boat heading home from a friends houseboat when my paddle boat started to take water. "Oh shit, I'm fucking sinking!!" was all I could mutter out (I swear a lot, I know, but I was sinking). Sure enough, I went under with all of my clothes on and no one to hear me call so I didn't. To be honest, I didn't want to be seen as the idiot tourist whose boat sank. Luckily, I know how to swim and my houseboat was in sight. I floated on my back to my houseboat, stripped down, took a shower and decided to leave.

The only way out for me is to fly. The road is closed down south and while I could wait and see if the road opens in the next few days, I have all of India to see and I'm bored out of m mind here. Tomorrow I have a flight to Delhi and will then take a bus back up north to Dharamasala/McLeod Ganj. It should be a long two days but it's the only choice I have. Once I get back up north, I will be back on track. Until then.....