Indian Travel

It’s 8am. I’m outside in the dirty noisy streets, the air is no less polluted than the air in Delhi. Like a net of exhaust fumes hanging over the city. Mucus in my throat being here for less than 24 hours. Hard to understand how people survive this smog where you can’t see your hands in front of your own eyes. I’m standing in front of my bus. Golden Temple tour&travel. 

A plate of fried dough and a Samosa accompanied with a bright red orange sweet sauce I cannot identify in my hands. A miracle that after all the confusion of the pick up spot I even found my way here.

Being woken up at 6am by the blasting music of a neighboring house, like a techno party, I tremble into this day with a good 10 hours of sleep. Good timing at least after all the stress of traveling here for 24 hours. The last two days taking the best of me.

Realizing I have booked the most inconvenient way to get all the way from Varkala down south to the Northern Himalayas, my favorite relaxation spot Dharamsala. Going through days of useless stress trying to get a train ticket for any of the overbooked trains in this season, I finally manage when I walk myself to the train station in the blistering afternoon heat a day before leaving. Direct train going nearby the airport in Cochin that was the idea. 

My ideas were great and with the usual senseless approach of my fellow Indian friends I managed quite well on my own, escalating from all my hardship of finding no help until I actually board on to my journey.

Punctual as the German I am, I arrive an hour before estimated arrival time. Also punctual as a German I receive a text from the train company informing me that it already has a delay of over an hour. Two hours of waiting and the possibility of arriving too late for my flight. Great start for an even greater journey.

I go to the ticket window get a general ticket that would have literally saved me a week of stressing just to end up on the floor of the train’s overcrowded wooden class. Sitting on my backpack, the floor, between people moving around all the time, stepping on each other, the tea and coffee guys passing through every two minutes followed by the biriyani pani pani cold drinks calls, I find myself uncomfortably tired and sweaty in that position for over five hours. Being looked at strangely as the only foreigner, trying to squeeze myself in between people on the wooden benches, chasing down three refreshments, I finally arrive, using my elbows too push myself out of the train. 

It is not exactly by the airport but close enough to get by with  a 350 ₹ Auto. Looking for food I go into the first stall serving the basic parotta and Dosa as I don’t see anything on maps outside the station. Once finishing my extra cheap meal (110 ₹ for masala Dosa and a pineapple juice) I make my way out of the station. Only so to realize that this place is full of shops and great places to eat. Well suits the mood of the day where it seems things just won’t go right especially the minute I enter the train when the realization hits me that there was an airport nearby Varkala that I wasn’t aware of having direct flights of three hours up to the North. Much cheaper, extremely easy and convenient. Not for me. Not today. 

By the time I arrive at the airport it’s not even 6pm, four hours before my flight departs and I am already exhausted, sticky, so tired that I feel I need a 12 hour nap. But there I am at the food court eating a humongous chocolate vanilla crunchy caramel nuts sundae, hoping a large ice cream could soothe my pain. Now I feel sick on top of it.

Slowly I move over to the check in and security fishing out my hidden lighter once more and find some armchair to rest in for what’s left of the time before my first flight takes off. One hour to Bangalore. What a waste of a journey just to get to the next big city in the south and spend the night there at the airport to actually go to the place I want to go. Indian travel. I made all the wrong decisions I cry to one of my Indian helpers. It’s not your fault he reminds me, soothing my feeling of inadequacy that I’m confronted with here every single day. It’s the system, it’s not you. For all of us Indians as well, it’s even hard for us to travel. This is just what I need to hear in this situation. Reminding me of seeing all the Indians in the train station also unable to get the tickets they needed including my friends who were trying to help. 

Finally arriving at my first stop I see that my morning flight is already delayed for an hour. For now I don’t care and just try to find my way through to get a relatively comfortable sleeping spot hoping that my bags would be fully checked through which of course nobody would know about or promise me at this point. I don’t care.

Putting my scarf under my head on a snake shaped bench that looks cozy enough to close my eyes for a bit I stuff my backpack under the bench and I try to catch some hours of sleep until the early morning hours.

Super tired I board onto my last flight and try to snooze some more. Finally arriving at 10am, I get an Uber with the support of very helpful locals. I feel at ease for just a moment. The air is cold, I wear my sweater for the first time. Also I can barely see anything as the air is so foggy and smoggy that it’s hard to understand if it’s the weather or the general condition. Turns out it is the general condition as I figure out later.

The place is dirty, the Uber driver very friendly and chatty and my mood hopeful for the hotel with a pool that I booked, considering already to extend my stay to enjoy and rest. This hope will be smashed the moment I arrive at the reception desk and get the usual ignorant North Indian treatment. Not instructing me with anything giving me the shittiest room without a window or an electric kettle as I’ve requested before. The air is damp and so is the towel my bed sheets and everything else in this room including my clothes when I leave the next morning. 

I go down ask for the kettle, asking about the pool and when the water is getting hot as I urgently need a shower. I decide for the rest of my questions about WiFi, golden temple, transportation etc later. After becoming unpleasant and aggressive again as my requests remain unanswered I get a kettle.  Trying to make it work with the broken sockets, I finally succeed when I’m about to lose it, making my instant coffee, getting a Luke warm shower. The first time in this journey I would have needed a proper hot shower.

Getting ready to go outside I decide to see the Golden Temple and explore my surroundings as that’s what I came for. The main center consists of alleys full of stalls like an endless market selling everything one could imagine reaching from local fruits and vegetables, spices, nuts and dry fruits, jaggery, colored noodles in all shapes, different flavors of chips, fish, meat, you name it… through winter clothes, anything for homes, fabrics, windows, and jewelry to shops and shops and stalls and restaurants offering the most delicious snacks and treats from the area. Kulcha, Lassi, Naan, breakfast, fresh juices, chai, coffee. It’s busy it’s buzzing and all a bit too much for me on that day. 

I try to soak it in and focus on the Golden Temple. It’s fascinating I gotta say how well Indians structure the logistics. Arriving at the site I find endless signs with directions for public toilets, shoe drop off, drinking water etc. Multiple windows pointing you drop off your shoes before entering the actual premises. Walking toward the gate on different carpets directing the way, you’re shown to wash your hands, cover your hair (they’re giving out scarfs) and walk through the little water pools to walk in with clean feet, all out of respect for the holy place.

Entering through the gate I see a rectangular pool in the middle of the whole site. It’s an entire building complex reaching around the lake. The holy water where men and women are allowed to take a dip in different spots explicitly marked for the purpose. On each corner drinking water is given out in little silver metal bowls. Traditional Music is sounding through the speakers originating from live musicians playing at the end of the pool sounding across the entire Golden Temple areal.

I pause for a moment and try to absorb my surroundings including all the Punjab and Sikh people bustling around, taking pictures, touching the floor, kneeling down. The atmosphere is special. Holy and relaxing at the same time. Welcoming. Tears rising up my eyes. This country is so stressful and challenging for me. Feeling so much loneliness and helplessness and at the same time being held and cared for in all places. It is such a paradox blend all the impressions. All alone and yet never at the same time.

Slowly I make my way around the pool, walking on the carpet rolled out across the entire floor around the pool. The marvel stone is freezing under the bare skin of my feet. It’s cold. After the humidity and 34 degrees for over a month, the cold is severe welcome. I’m wearing my down jacket, the sun is shining on my face. 

Next station free food in the Sikh temple. Again the organization of serving food to thousands of people every day is impressive. Walking up the stairs different people hand me the metal plate a spoon and a bowl for water. I enter a hall where rows and rows of people sit on the long narrow carpets facing each other. I sit down as the first volunteer comes serving a kind of dhal from a metal bucket. Another one dropping some veggies on my plate. I observe carefully how everyone else is doing it, opening my hands for the warm chapati that comes flying right into my palms. Rounding up the whole meal with a kind of warm Kheer (sweet Indian rice pudding with local spices and nuts) and water being poured into the bowl from kind of a semi movable tank, pushed around by another Sikh. A genius construction on rolls so no one has to bend down as the water is coming out of a tap that’s fixed onto the tank on floor level. 

After finishing my lunch, I get up, follow again the route of the other people, hand over my dishes and go to wash my hands at the long water sink taps around the wall. Washing my hands and mouth like I’m used to by now as in every Indian Dhaba or rest before and after eating with my fingers, also rinsing my mouth. I find this procedure like many others much more hygienic and clean than eating habits in the west. Using water instead of paper. Also sitting on the floor, eating is much more comfortable and healthy.

Getting outside again I finish my tour around the water, take some pictures, sit down to soak in the sun, enter some of the rooms around and leave. 

It’s still early afternoon and I wanna walk around some more. Yet the dirty air, the honking, the motorbikes and Autos almost running over my feet, people yelling at me and all the other dynamics of the busy streets are burning me out. I grab a cold coffee and slowly walk back to my hotel deciding that my day is over. That I’ve got enough. I would have loved to try some delicious Lassis and Kulche as suggested, yet there is no time or space for this right now.

Back at the hotel I only wanna settle in after the unfriendly hotel staff claims the pool is on the roof making me go up all the way in my towel just to find again that they were lying. This whole place is just another shit whole. Welcome back to the north of India. My bones are hurting, my entire body aching, I’m glad to know that I will leave in the early morning still trying to figure out how to find the exact spot where the bus starts as it’s not located on the map and no one knows the place.

Ordering food to have an early dinner in bed, eating my snacks that I’ve gotten from the shop, I fall into an all too well deserved early sleep at 8pm and wake up from the music at 6 in the morning. 

Getting ready to leave, having my coffee, calling an Uber I find myself again in an Indian situation as the driver keeps calling but not coming. Finally I see him coming, running across the street to get me as he was parked somewhere else. He’s taking my heavy backpack guiding me across the road between the cars. Like my driver from the day before he has a sweet aura, kind and helpful attitude. And so again I find myself torn between just telling him to take me to the address in the middle of some dirty road or letting him find out if it’s the right location. He doesn’t let me out the car arriving at the place, calling a friend. He knows now and despite my rejecting attitude und doubtful looks he goes just across the street, and drops me right in front of my bus asking for the number and company. Once again the contradictory attitudes I keep receiving, catch me in between my behavior of trusting and being grateful for the help or refusing to believe what I’m being told and rejecting the advice. 

Finding myself all these days entangled in my own rude attitude as I’ve been screwed over too many times. Not intentionally but because they don’t know better and I’m never sure when they do. I feel grateful and a bit guilty about my harsh attitude towards the sweet driver who just wanted to make sure I’m in the right place and did so as well. I feel exhausted at times, drained and just wanna be me again. 

When I then get out with my bags and ask for a place for chai just to find some food and the driver walks with me and buys me the chai, my world is ok again. I’m on my way. To Dharamsala. To my safe place. The mountains. When we stop for a break, the second chai in my hands, slowly they start rising up in front of me, their peaks covered in snow … I’m back.