TRAVELMAN Lost In INDIA part 2: The Darkness Before The Dawn of Jaipur

travelman (60)in #writing • 6 years ago (edited)

I walked through the Haridwar bus depot market. It ran along the river bank of the Ganga. Technically, it was a tributary of the Ganga. Something that looked like the city was on the other side. I crossed a walking bridge. Technically, it was the outskirts of the city. The area was busy with Indian visitors, many of them swimming and/or bathing in the Ganga.

I saw a Hotel on the banks of the river and considered checking in for the night. I had no real desire to spend time in Haridwar but I thought I may need to stay a night before I was able to get a new bus ticket to my desired location of Jodhpur. I explained in my last post that moments after being dropped off from a forty-five minute tuk tuk ride there, the bus boarding location, I realized I’d been sold a ticket to Jaipur by accident.

My immediate need was a wifi connection. My phone was not working and I figured it was due to my SIM card having expired that very day, just my luck (I later learned I simply had no coverage in the area.) I continued onward, up some stone steps, to what looked like a place to find a restaurant or coffee shop with wifi. I asked the first restaurant I came across that looked like they would provide it.

No dice.

I walked onward. After 200 meters of souvenir shops and no restaurants, I turned back. Everything was so foreign. I didn’t see a single westerner. I felt trickles of adrenaline tickle my senses.

What a thrill it was to be traveling in such an unexpected place. I was living my favorite Kurt Vonnegut quote, “Unexpected travel plans are dancing lessons from God.” And God knows I have the white man’s disease of two left feet. I need private lessons.

Maybe, I’d just go to tha hotel for the night to regroup, maybe I’d just go back to the bus depot/cow pasture/pig trough/market/trash dump to find my bus to Jaipur and take my chances.

I found a coffee shop next to the Ganga that I’d walked past without seeing the first time, they had WiFi ...and king size coffee lattes. I found Jaipur on google maps. My original plan had been to spend two nights in Jodhpur before heading further west to Jaisalmer near the Pakistan border. Jaipur was in the opposite direction, about seven hours east of Jodhpur. Hmmm.

I looked up what there was to do there. It actually looked like a worthwhile place to spend a day or two. I decided I’d listen to fate and turn this accident upside down.

Now, I was worried about not being able to find my bus in the giant dirt lot/cow pasture/pig trough/trash dump/market/bus depot. And the way the last two days had gone as far as travel plans go, I wondered if that was even the right dirt lot/cow pasture/pig trough/trash dump/market/bus depot. So I downed my king sized latte and headed back in search of my bus to Jaipur. Jodhpur? No, JAIPur!

I told myself to book a hostel in Jaipur before leaving the WiFi, but then I thought better of it. I was worried about losing out on another deposit if I didn’t find my bus. So I thought worse of it and told myself I’d find WiFi somewhere near the bus station in Jaipur.

Jodhpur? No. Jaipur!!!

Thinking I’d find WiFi near the bus depot in Jaipur will go down in the annals of my life alongside ....”I can pull an all nighter for my chemistry final, it’s just multiple choice anyway” and “Okay, I’ll just have one more, what better way to celebrate starting my new job tomorrow.”

It took asking two bus drivers where to go before one led me to the ticket office- a tent next to the fruit stand behind the pigs and cow. They told me I was in the right place and My bus would be there at the scheduled time.

****I thought you might like to know what my index finger looks like close up and out of focus so I included it in the shot****

I waited. I sat on a giant, old tire outside the tent. An argument broke out. One gentleman was irate and pointing his finger in another gentleman’s face (you only find gentleman at bus depot tents). The other gentleman gently swatted the finger pointers finger down and away, only for it to pop back up.

Right before I jumped in to remind them that “Hey, gentlemen! We’re all friends here, right?” -another gentleman stepped in and appeared to attempt this duty on my behalf. Then more gentlemen joined, some were side takers, some were gentlemen mediators.

They weren’t speaking English so I’m not exactly sure what the argument was about. But if my Hindi serves me well, and I think it does, they were in staunch disagreement about what really happened in the final episode of The TV show Lost and whether all the characters had been in purgatory the entire time. One can only assume.

Whatever it was about, the finger pointer made an exit and things got boring again. The scheduled time came around and I saw no bus with my number. I asked a cute young woman, the only other westerner, if she was headed to the same place. She was.

She’d been there in the lot since five AM. She’d also been a victim of poor communication with the travel agent. The bus departed at five PM, not five AM; I wasn’t the only one.

There was much confusion but somehow we were able to catch wind that our bus was waiting about 200 meters away in the lot. We rushed over to it... in order to wait ten minutes to board. After talking to the beautiful Spaniard for five minutes, I was looking forward to maybe getting to know her... that didn’t happen.

I got in my sleeper coffin, tossed and turned, read from my iPad book collection, bought some bad garlic naan, cookies, and an ice cream bar at a middle of the night stop where I was avoided by the Spaniard (she’d had a long day), and got dropped off after 12 hours at five AM under a downtown Jaipur bridge.

Horns honked and motor bikes slipped between busses and cars like water through cracks. From the traffic you’d think it was the scene of a population attempting to flee an alien invasion...And everything was written in Hindi characters. I was the alien.

I picked a direction and walked off into the darkness before the dawn.

****Me nestled snugly in my upper bunk sleeper coffin****