Leaving India

March 12 – 25
We ended up leaving India earlier than planned due to the 100 degree weather, the whole family getting sick and the ever present air pollution. Travel in India is truly an adventure for the independent traveler. Each day brings moments of exasperation followed by moments of beauty and kindness.

Perhaps the day that best exemplifies our trip in India was our journey from Agra to Sawai Madhopur where we hoped to see tigers in the Rathanbore National Tiger Reserve.

That morning, we left the hotel to walk to our favorite restaurant in Agra for breakfast. As soon as we stepped out on the street, men began to ask us if we needed a bicycle rickshaw. We politely declined and walked on avoiding the cow pies all over the street. The Hindus in India believe that cows are sacred and allow them to walk everywhere. They are vegetarian, so the cows are not slaughtered for meat. We made our way past cows, pigs, stray dogs and a goat while dodging the speeding motorcycles, motorized rickshaws and the plodding bicycle rickshaws. We even passed a line of water buffalo with beaded necklaces around their necks.

We ate breakfast on the roof with a great view of the Taj Majal. Bjorn and Emma sat near the railing and looked down at the ever-changing parade of animals, people and vehicles on the street below. That day service was very slow and we ended up overstaying our checkout time at the hotel.

We made it to the train station after a wild ride by motorized rickshaw and began an hour long process of trying to get train tickets to Sawai Madhopur. First, we went to the information booth and began a hilarious exchange with a man sitting only two feet away from us on the other side of an opening in the glass. But he insisted on talking into a microphone which broadcast his answer to the waiting room behind us and was mostly unintelligible. After a few minutes of this, we finally asked him to speak to us normally. He insisted there was only one train and it didn’t leave until 7pm but then admitted that there was a train leaving at 2pm but we would have to change trains. He gave us the train numbers and we headed off to purchase tickets.

Turns out the train numbers were wrong. We discovered this after standing in several lines with several noisy exchanges between the men behind the desk. One of whom finally called to get the right numbers and I was ushered over to the line of men standing in line for tickets. In India, women can cut to the front of the line. I did this. However, the idea of personal space in India is nonexistent. I stood at the window with all the men crowding around me, very interested in my exchange with the ticket man. First, I needed to fill out a form. I didn’t have a pen. No problem, the men around me provided one. Then I needed the correct change. No problem, my new friends pointed out the proper bills. I finally emerged victorious from this cluster of helpful individuals with train tickets in hand.

Now, we moved to the platform where we waited among clusters of families and even more clusters of flies for our train to arrive. We knew that our train was second class with no air conditioning. What we didn’t know is that western tourists rarely take those trains. We suddenly became a huge tourist attraction ourselves for the many traveling Indians that day. We found open seats near the window but we had a bunch of instant friends who wanted to sit with us as well. It became quite crowded in our little compartment.

Several men sat in the luggage racks to get a better view of the interesting american tourists.

The train moved slowly through the beautiful countryside. It was hard to look at the view though, as our traveling companions were eager to practice their english and chat. This was great fun for awhile but soon a huge discussion broke out in Hindi and we were left on our own. I turned to the window finally, and then heard, “Excuse me, madam, is this your first trip to India?” The young man speaking hung onto the outside of the train as we sped along. I think he stood partly in the doorway and leaned over to our window which was at the end of the train carriage close to the door. He then became my tour guide of the rajastani countryside, pointing out such obvious things as the farmers in their fields and the names of various farm animals.

These men stood on the platform looking in our compartment window at one of the first stations.

The first group of traveling companions eventually got off and a new group who didn’t speak any english took their places. This group simply sat and smiled amiably and stared at us. They bought a bunch of what looked like wild peas from a young boy who got on at one of the stations. They shared them with us, showing us how to shell them and eat the fresh pea inside. They looked a bit like garbanzo beans and tasted quite good. We got off at our connecting station just as our next train arrived. We hustled into an air conditioned car and paid the seven dollar upgrade to second class ac. We collapsed into cushy cool seats happy to be anonymous travelers ignored by our fellow passengers.

Our open window allowed me to show these women their photo. Then, they wanted another picture.

We arrived after dark in Sawai Madhopur and we decided to buy our train tickets for our next destination before we left the station. I went to stand in line again. I emerged fifteen minutes later without tickets as this ticket seller only had seats available on the midnight train. I found Mitch surrounded by a crowd of onlookers as a large man shouted out questions. “Oh, you are a doctor! How much money do you make?” Bjorn and Emma stood off to the side watching a large rather tough looking black pig foraging in the gutter.

Mitch broke off his seminar on “American Life” and we departed with a friendly motorized rickshaw driver who promised to take us to a very nice hotel with wifi. Several hotels later we wearily dropped our bags on the floor of our room. That night over dinner we traded stories from a day which we immediately dubbed our “craziest day of travel in 9 months”. We laughed hysterically about the man outside the train window, the people staring down at us from the luggage rack and the man at the station shouting questions at Mitch.

Pigs, similar to those Bjorn and Emma saw at the train station, wallow in the open sewage at Sawai Madhopur.

The next day we took a very expensive tour of the forest in search of tigers. We blew by all the monkeys and stopped at every deer. Deer are very exotic while monkeys are like squirrels in India.
We saw an interesting termite hill but …… no tigers. There were more interesting animals in town than out in the jungle.

A camel pulls a cart filled with cement sacks just outside our hotel

Perhaps the best part of our trip to India were the people we met. Tiny and Mickey, the brother and sister who owned the palace where we stayed in Bundi were very kind to us when we all became ill immediately after we arrived. They explained the festival of Holi and many other Indian traditions. And, Tiny described part of what she called “the Indian mentality” which is a very different way of looking at health. They arranged car and train tickets for our return journey to Delhi so we had a very easy trip back. We met a family with kids the same age as ours. The kids sat companionably on the seat together watching each other playing video games on their computers.

These kids were on a trip to Delhi with their family for their end of year break. In India the school year starts in Spring.

Unfortunately, our time in Bundi was the low point of our entire trip due to all of us being sick. We all had fever, fatigue, diarrhea and some of us vomited. All this while we shared one room and one bathroom and temperatures outside soared to 102 degrees. Thankfully, we had air conditioning and a lovely green lawn in the courtyard. Nonetheless, it colored our view of traveling in India. We quickly made plans to shorten our stay and happily arrived in Nepal to cool temperatures after just 12 days in India.
-Margit