“Kya ap ki pas BATHROOM ?”
SO, Vasi and I decided to go from Rishikesh to the start of the Ganges in Gangotri, which is about 12 hours away. India is not made for women’s bladders. Along the way we’d periodically stop in small towns and the men would pee in these open -backed urinals, but no one had bathrooms. When pointed to one public restroom (think putrid holes in the ground that dont drain and havent been cleaned in years) i I tried to bribe a hotel owner to let us use his, he kindly agreed but didn’t want anymoney.
At another stop we took off up a hill to find a private tree or bush. Our jeep was waiting below (side note, these “shared jeeps” run on the bus routes and hold around 12 people. In the front of ours sat a young and quite reckless but sweet driver and two raving alcoholics. At first whenever we’d pass someone waving or talking they’d say,
“he has drinking problem” and then ask us questions like
“you like india?”. But after a few stops and more booze they were totally passed out in the front seat, nearly slumping over on the driver, heads bobbing as we made wrenching hair pin turns on raods chisseled into the Himalayan foothills, turns that made my stomach churn as I held on and stared into the clouds to keep from vomiting. IN the middle sat me, Vasi, and Brian, a 40 something American living in Tamil Nadu — a character, just picture — baseball had, rudrakshah mallah slung around his neck, half mockingly “namastaying” or shouting “hari om” to every passing ascetic. And in the back a “baba” general name for an ascetic — the orange robes, etc, carrying bedroll and tiffin carrier. So, as the driver is carreeing around hairpin turns, brian is borrowing my video camera holding it the window to capture the 1000 ft vertical drop (no guard rail) this “holy man” is eating our mangoes and singing in the backseat, the drunks swaying in the front and the driver spitting chewing tobacco. Im feeling less sick and just laughing as the driver is trying to ask questions in broken English and Brian is describing all the ultimate frisbee teams he started in Asia, while Vasi and I are taking pictures of the “baba” until I think, eating and in the back seat he felt like some sort of tourist attraction (okay he was) or caged animal (later when we ran into him again in gangotri he tried to use this connection to his advantage).
Okay, back to the original story. So we’re walking up this hill as the men in our car are drinking tea and this woman calls out to us and motions for us to come into her house. WIth the hope of a toilet, we oblige, but to be polite, first sit down and entertain a host of questions. I must have repeated about 4 times that we need a bathroom and our bus is waiting, but im not sure that was understood because they say they’ll make tea, which we figure is okay, but it’s not coming, we haven’t peed, we’ve met her entire family (and know their ages, jobs etc) and our car and luggage are in the town. Finally i make my hindi really clear when we hear loud honking noises, we pee, make rushed apologizes and head back to the anxious caravan.
I apologize profusely to our driver for worrying him and thank him for not leaving town without us (luckily we’d been lost once before and he proved loyal, and this time we had the added comfort of goofey brian who seemed super happy to have english speakers to chat it up with). Still, we felt bad, so we offer the driver biscuits, which he declines. then i have an idea. The day before, curious and thinking it candy, we’d bought two packets of chewing tobacco. When i offered these to our driver his whole composition changed. He started talking to me, laughing at why i’d bought them. He stopped and showed us a special hot spring and i felt special that I could act as “translator” for such things as “where is your family?” etc etc.
Somehow now that we were friends, he started talking about his family. With one hand on the wheel, probably honking and passing an overcrowded bus on a blind curve, he reached into his pocket with the other and brought out pictures of his family. I asked him if he’s sad that he’s not with them, and then he said no, cause he’ll see them soon, do we want to come? I’d gotten a good vibe from him from the beginning, but when he took us to his home, in a army compund in the most beautiful valley i’d ever seen (i wanted to stay there), i was totally touched. His affection for his wife was obvious and as he dotted over his chubby 5 month old daughter while we drank tea and made comfortable small talk I felt I had entered one of those “magic travel moment” that make all the pain of the previous days nausea disapear.
Good thing too cause it got dramatically worse.
Tags: India, Travel
nabrams
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