Incredible Journey

My journey to the USA took 40 hours. It started with a nine hour bus ride from Rishikesh to New Delhi where I took a cab directly to the airport arriving about 11 pm for my 3:25 am flight on British Airways to Philadelphia with a layover in Heathrow Airport, London for about 5 hours.

Waiting for the bus in Rishikesh before I left India, I stood with two Israeli travelers. An Indian passenger gleefully stepped up to us, like one foot in front of us, like right in our faces to practice his English. "Hello?" "Your country?"... the standard questions. After a thousand or more such approaches in the last 6 months, I was less than enthused about making another "friend" with whom I could barely communicate with on any tangible level. My compatriots reacted similarly. We forced a smile. After learning I was from the USA, the man went on to inquire of one of the Israelis, "Is that an American cigarette?" He obviously assumed we "Westerners" were traveling together and from the same place, though we had just met. The Israeli smoker said about his smoke, "No it's North Indian." The Indian man couldn't understand the accent. The Israeli man repeated himself several times. His message didn't get through to the Indian man who wanted to see some amazing cigarette full of "Western"... i.e. affluent tobacco. In reality it was a cheap hand rolled cigarette of Indian pouch tobacco.

Later on the bus, I exchanged warm smiles with the inquisitive Indian man's little children. I practiced my two lines of Hindi to their amusement. Sometimes the deepest communication is beyond our feeble minds and speech.

I turned my head towards the window and sunk into my solitude. I watched the dusty roadsides of shop stalls and markets drift by underneath the mayhem of humanity that is India. Cycle rickshaws. Noisy orange lorries. Men in lungis... a skirt like garment made by wrapping a piece of flat cloth around the waist. The lungi is disappearing as young men and boys take on casual trousers and jeans and button shirts. The local clothing is no longer local.

Dust floated in the window. The road was paved. The wide shoulders were dust. The bus oft kicked up dust as it swerved around slower vehicles in the game of chicken that is driving in India. An hour outside of Delhi, the smog grew thick from one of the most polluted cities in the world. I tried to prepare myself mentally for being on the opposite side of the world in 40 hours.

The Delhi airport brought that reality closer quickly. The food that costs 10 cents outside the airport, costs 2 dollars inside. The layer of dust that covers things in roadside stands disappeared into the climate controlled cleanliness of the airport. My dust covered backpacker's garb was suddenly out of place in a world of deodorized casual wear. I slipped out of my lungi and into pants. There were a few people that looked like they'd just stepped out of the village in their turbans. But most people looked like they were India's westernized classes. No wonder when you consider that a plane ticket is likely beyond 90 percent of India's people resources. I heard that less than 1 percent of India's population is computer literate.

I waited five hours in Delhi at the airport. I had panicked when I realized I miscounted my visa by a day and hoped to cross customs before midnight. My plan was stimied when I found that you cannot enter the terminal until three hours before your flight. I waited in the passenger waiting room across the road. It took a full three hours to get through security and customs to the gate for my flight. Luckily the immigration officer didn't notice or didn't care that I was one day over my visa stay. A couple months before a Frenchman had told me that they count your 180 days exactly and include the day of your arrival. Somehow in my careful counting and recounting of days I had continually not counted the day of my arrival. I was thankful I didn't have to pay the $30 fine I expected. And I chalked it up to typical advice in India which contradicts the next person's advice and so you just never know until you get there.

The lines for security were the worst I've seen since flying out of Baltimore a few weeks after 9/ll. The New Delhi airport has blossomed in the last three years with a booming economy. Rather the crowds have blossomed and outgrown the airport. I enjoyed a documentary on 4 extreme sportsmen who were setting records for skiing and snowboarding in Nepal; the scenery of the villages was very authentic to my own experiences in Nepal two years ago.

My 9 hour flight to London left me in a sleepy daze for my 5 hour layover at Heathrow. I found showers and washed the dust of the bus journey I'd began 20 hours earlier off. I enjoyed some yoga in the multi-use prayer room. I walked around like a zombie staring at the shopping mall that calls itself an airport there. Time bent and I suddenly realized my flight was in 30 minutes and I had strolled quite a ways from my departure gait. I did my best to keep upright and walk quickly to the gate in my sleep deprived state. Ready to collapse into my seat after finding no line at the gate, I discovered we were being bused to our plane on the runway. I prayed I didn't pass out. I didn't. Until I got to my seat where I feel into a deep sleep waiting for the plane to take off. I managed to stay awake enough to enjoy the two meals and watch some movies.