India & Nepal: History & Culture Through Service Learning

India is a big country. 

After spending two days taking buses into the mountains, we realized in Manali that it was going to take about two days to get back out and continue the itinerary we have created.  We are trying to begin our homestay and volunteer work as soon as possible, but must travel quite a distance to get there.  We knew we had to leave Manali as soon as possible. 

All the night buses were full so we decided to hire a private taxi to drive us 8 hours into the night.  At 10:00 pm we met out-driver outside of our guesthouse, bound for Chandigarh.  He was to drive us down winding mountain roads most of the night, before finally popping out in the vast Himachal Pradesh valley at sunrise.   He drove swift yet cautiously, criss-crossing mountain passes, rivers, and little mountain towns.  At 6:00am we arrived at Chandigarh station, where we hoped to get a last-minute train ticket.  After waiting two hours for the rail office to open, we were told it was impossible to get on a morning train, and would have to wait until evening.  We had a certain urgency to keep on the road, so after traveling 8 hours by taxi, we hopped on a bus destined 11-hours to Agra.

We rode the bus for its entire run.  We made friends with the attendant, and saw an incredible variety of people get on and off during the course of the day.   The most crowded it ever got was after school had been let out, and the high-school aged students who all at once swarmed the bus, including a few who climbed up to the roof and rode from there.  When we arrived at sunset we said thankyou to our driver in Hindi, who put his hands together and softly said , “Namaste”.   We are staying a few days in Agra to see the Taj Mahal, before making a bee-line for Nepal, to our farm and our homestay.

Unfortunately, flooding has affected hundreds of thousands of people in northern India, including around the India-Nepal border.  The border crossing we are planning to travel to is included in this disaster, and we do not know how this will affect our travel plans.  

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