around the world in 180 days

     We decided that, despite the hippies and the general backpacker air, we liked the peacefulness and at-oneness of the Buddhists in McLeod Ganj, and so we’d stay for an extra day and skip our trip to Manali. These 10 hour bus rides are killers, and missing out on one also played a strong role in our decision.

    We’ve known for a week or so that we need to book our train tickets for the ride from Shimla to Delhi in advance, so we tried to take care of that yesterday. We walked 10km into Dharamsala and waited in a stationary line for the better part of an hour before deciding that it would be worthwhile to pay a travel agent to make the bookings for us. We taxied it back up the hill to McLeod Ganj and sat in a travel agent’s office for the better part of an hour trying to book the tickets, to no avail. It was a huge waste of time, but really, what else have we got to do?

     While we were in Dharamsala, we stopped by the bus station to line up our trip to Shimla the next morning. The ticket agent told us we could either take a night bus that evening, leaving at 9:30 pm, or a morning bus at 8 am. We wanted the morning bus, but the evening bus was a deluxe bus, which means 2×2 seating instead of the 2×3 of the ordinary bus, fewer stops and seats that recline. We’d done ok on our last night bus, so we signed up for the one that left yesterday evening.

     It was on our ride last night that we learned the difference between public buses and private buses (which our last night bus was). Private buses are quiter, they don’t stop, and, most importantly, they don’t have a conductor on them blowing a damn whistle every 2 minutes. Inside the cabin of the bus, the whistle was ear piercing. Anna and I both wore earplugs and it was still pretty bad. Once we got into the country, he slowed his pace though, but we still had a restless night. We just couldn’t get comfortable.

    Once we arrived in Shimla, we were attacked by touts, offering to take us to a hotel (where their commission would be tacked onto our room rate) or carry our bags. The main area of Shimla is pedestrian only, which makes for nice walking, but makes getting your luggage to your hotel a lot of work.

     This time, instead of being overwhelmed and pushed around by the touts like we were in Delhi, we were grumpy from not sleeping and I yelled at them, told them to go away, which they finally did. Anna was impressed that I was able to tell them off without using the f-word, and, in hindsight, so am I.

     Shimla seems a pleasant town. It strikes us as more of a domestic Indian travel destination, something like Estes Park or Aspen (without the skiiing) in the US. The main street is lined with restaurants and touristy shops, but it is a nice walk along a ridgeline and the temperature is very comfortable.

    If things go as planned (how often does that happen?), last night’s bus trip will be our last one in India. We are leaving Shimla on Friday, April 27 and heading back to Delhi on the trian, which is supposed to beautiful ride through the mountains. In 96 km, the first leg of the trip goes through 100 tunnels. We’ll be in Delhi for two nights and one full day. We’re going to give a call to Sandeep, a guy we met on our flight to Delhi who is moving to the US in a couple of months to complete an MBA and hopefully we’ll meet up with him and his family at some point. We’ve got a few other errands to take care of in Delhi before we leave on Sunday.

     Then, on April 29, we’re flying to Kathmandu, Nepal with the intent of hiking the Annapurna circuit, which, just like the name implies, is a hike around the Annapurna range in the Himalayas. Its a very popular trek in which you hike from tea-house to tea-house. It won’t be a wilderness hike by any means, but the scenery is supposed to be fantastic. The hike will take something like 20 days to finish, and during that time I might not be able to update the blog very often or at all. I don’t know what to expect as far as internet facilities in the mountains of Nepal. I’ll keep writing, though, so there might be a huge chunk of stuff that goes up all at once. Sorry.

    The Annapurna circuit will be the centerpiece of our trip. After that, we’ll only have about 6 or 7 weeks before we need to come back home and start dealing with all those realities we’ve been lucky enough to avoid for so long. From Nepal, we’re going to fly to Bangkok and spend 2 or 3 weeks in Thailand, both in the north and on the beaches in the south. I want to get a suit made while we’re there and from Bangkok, we’ll likely book the rest of our airplane tickets.

    After Thailand, we’re going to Europe, or that’s the plan right now, anyway. We’re going to stick to eastern Europe, Poland and Czech Republic and the like, and then head towards Scandanavia if our money holds out. Right now, we’re thinking we’ll be back in MPLS on our around the 15th of July. That, of course, is subject to change, but it sounds like it’ll be helpful for Anna’s schooling if we can be back mid-July. I think we’ll be ready to be home by then anyway, even if it does mean dealing with the “real world” again.

    Our hike in Nepal will be a lot of work. It will be the longest hike we’ve gone on, even if it’s not quite a real backpacking trip, we’ll still end up carrying a lot of weight, because we may not be able to find someplace to drop off our unnecessary gear, which would mean lugging everything we brought with us. It wouldn’t be too bad, but we’ll be ready to relax once we get to Thailand. Until then, we’ll relax as much as we can in Shimla before we say goodbye to India for a very long time, if not for good.

Tags: India, Shimla, Travel, travel plans

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 4:49 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.