My program has finally finished. I watched all my friends leave for the airport with over stuffed packs, filled with ethnic clothing, Ganesha shrines and memories. They were going home, after a hard three and a half months. I gave each a hug and watched them ride to the airport where a plane would sweep them to their beds, their homes, their lives and their mothers. I choked up with jealousy. Only one more week. What could be the damage? Its not so terrible, not at all really. On Thursday, my mother, in her usual way of doing things, came to spend a week with me in India. In her words, 'who knows when I will have another child in India to come visit.' I have been so excited to see her. The day she came in we spent the day in Dehli but that night we were going to take an overnight bus to Rishikesh. This small Hindu pilgrimage site is set on the banks of the ganga against the foothills of the Himalayas, It is well known for being the world capital of Yoga. I thought this might act as the perfect place for my mother to see a softer side of India besides hard core Dehli and it would be a good place for myself to rest and catch up on some work.
I decided I would try to make this three day trip from Dehli easier than most of my travels in India. For most of my time in India I have arranged my own travel and that travel is mostly local, state run transport. It is very cheap but you pay in other ways, do you all remember my story about the 45 hour train ride? I thought my mom deserved better so I stooped to let a travel agency book my mother and I on a 'luxury' bus, one with a/c and reclining chairs. I think my definition of ‘luxury’ is different than my travel agents.
We arrived at eight sharp, just like my travel agent said because the bus was going to leave at eight-thirty from this location. We sit inside for an hour when finally we are sent on a cycle rick-shaw, with all of our stuff, to the bus stop. I am a little ticked off because he said the bus was coming here and we were already an hour later than planned. So my mother and I pile on this cycle rickshaw. I am embarrassed. Could there be anything more neo-colonyist? My butt is more than half way off the seat and I am keeping my self on by using all my leg muscle to stay on. Our travel agent told the rickshaw peddler where we were going and told us that we were going to go meet the bus. We started down one street but were stopped by the police. The police man turned to us and asked where we were going 'the bus stop, we are going to our bus,' 'Do you know where it is you are going?' 'Yes, the bus, we are going to Rishikesh,' After He had asked my mother twice he turned to me and asked the same and i answered the same. He finally said "oh, do you guys not speak english?' I was shocked. I raised my voice, slightly, 'we are SPEAKING ENGLISH!' 'Ok, where are you going?' 'to the bus.' He told us we needed to know the exact location otherwise the peddler would take us to a foreign place and demand money. Even if we did know the location we wouldn't know what it looked like. The officer would not let us pass until we knew where we were going. Our peddler decided to bypass the government and off-roaded a bit to get the street the government had so loosely guarded. We arrived at our bus stop with no bus and 15 other people waiting for the same bus. They said wait until nine-forty five. Finally around ten-thirty we boarded an alternate bus that would take us to our real bus.
Twenty minutes later we board out actual bus. It is so far from luxury. The seats are crampt and there is definitely no ac. Around eleven we are all seated. A group of Koreans are forced to sit in the front of the bus with the driver where their are benches instead of seats. They are not happy and demand a refund. There is stand-off between the koreans and the bus conductor for an hour. Eventually… eventually, they reach a compromise, and around twelve we begin what we should have started three and a half hours ago. It is supposed to only take eight hours and so eight am was the new ETA. Meanwhile, my mother is in shock. She already thinks i have started to take her on this crazy journey. For me.. so far nothing seems out of place, a bit typical for our situation and our location. India was going to have to throw a curved ball in order to shock me. Bring it. Oh and she did, she certainly did.
Immediately after we left our gas station our bus would stop to pick up people to take to local destination. They would stand for the duration and get off. This practice was not legit. They did to pocket some extra money. It was 2 am and Dehli was glowing with activity. So many people were walking around and shops were open. We were stuck in stand-still traffic at one in the morning. I started to wonder when this city sleeps. I was dreadfully tired, the night before i had stayed up talking to my mother, catching up on months of silence from one another. I sat in my chair awfully tired and jerking every thirty seconds from the bus creeping in the traffic. Around that time the bed bugs appeared. i don't know if that is would really are but you can't see them and they make your exposed skin itch like crazy. I had the same thing happen a couple of time previous. That was awful. As I scratched fervently at my arm, I saw my mother do the same. I meant for it to be easy for her.
Around five we stopped because the radiator had gone. We sat there for about forty minutes. The crew decided to keep going but every thirty minutes we stopped to put two buckets of water in the radiator.
Around six we stop for our half-way point rest. Here, my mother told me I was the craziest out of her children and what sort of journey had i brought her on. I forget how rough India can be on a person.
The last event is the one that topped the beautiful cake made of corruption and greed. An hour outside of the final destination, our bus driver decides that he doesn't want to go so he stops. After four hours of driving on a broken bus he won't go one more hour to go the place we had paid him to go. Luckily, we had a European who spoke fluent English, Hindi and Japanese. The bus driver would not give in. If we wanted to go to Rishikesh we had to pay for our own rickshaw there. NO WAY! We called our travel agents, we pulled out all the stops. We were going down with a fight. The driver had us go into rickshaws. Since there were like sixteen of us, there were like three rickshaws. after we all had put our luggage in the rickshaw, the driver decided he was losing money and asked us all to get on the bus. Fourteen hour later from our starting time we were checking into a hotel.