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5 March 2000--New Delhi, India India is an amazing and colorful land of warm people,
traditional clothing, free-roaming sacred cows, rich history, beautiful temples,
forts and palaces, Hinduism, and some of the most annoying and ruthless taxi and
rickshaw drivers on this planet. And so it came to be that on our first night in India—namely, New Delhi-- we went toe–to-toe with these taxi drivers and won. Almost. The first step was to pay for a pre-paid taxi.
Devised by local authorities to help prevent the bilking of tourists, the
rates charged by the official pre-paid taxi booth are rather reasonable.
The problem is, finding the official, reasonably priced, pre-paid taxi
booth is a challenge in itself, as there are several booths all proclaiming
themselves to be so sanctioned. After a bit of work, we purchase a voucher—180 rupees, or roughly $4.20-- for our journey to our hotel. A voucher specifies taxi number 1167 as our assigned taxi. So the next challenge is finding 1167 in the swirl of madness outside the airport doors, as countless men, some forcibly trying to take our bags to their car, proclaim themselves to be the owner of our assigned vehicle. With some effort, we find 1167. Our next task is to assure that we and our driver are in agreement as to our destination and that no additional cost will be involved. We are relived to find him of an agreeable, pleasant disposition. “Yes, of course”, he knows where our hotel is and we shall be taken there directly; “of course not—this is prepaid taxi” he responds to our query regarding additional charges; and “but it is my duty” he warmly answers when we thank him in advance for his services. We relax in the back of the classically styled Ambassador vehicle as we began moving toward our destination. Clearly, the Delhi drivers are no match for a pair of vigilant and experienced travelers such as ourselves. No first time tourists are we! Then, as we are about to leave the airport grounds, our driver suddenly stops, exits the vehicle with not so much as a word, and is replaced by another driver. Taken aback by all of this, several moments pass, and we are moving yet again, before we think to reconfirm all of our previous queries. And then the schemes begin in earnest. They begin with a look of befuddlement as we try to confirm what we already undeniably know; that he knows where our hotel is located. “Listen, every driver in this city knows where this hotel is, so please do not act as though you do not,” we politely insist. “Your English is fine, and you know where this hotel is” we assert, this time with a healthy touch of displeasure. “We are going to our hotel and we are going there now!” A brief silence follows, but he soon starts the car moving forward once more. But we are not yet done, as he continues to drive around the city center, unable to find our very popular hotel. Either we are in the care of the most incompetent driver in India or, we are sure, just another shyster who has no regard for us or our time. At one point, he pulls over, and we ask a rickshaw driver for directions. Not surprisingly, the man, who we assume is an accomplice, tells us, of all things, that the hotel has changed its name! We summarily dismiss his aid, and ask the driver to move on. Will the attempts at trying to get us to stay at a hotel other than our own have no end? And then something remarkable happens. At the intersection where we have been expecting to find our hotel, we notice one with a name we recognize. Indeed, it is the name to which the rickshaw driver we earlier stopped on the street insisted our hotel had changed! We stop and find that it is our hotel, and that while the sign on the outside has changed, it is still known as the “Yari-Nisswa.” The man on the street actually was trying to help us. Relieved to have finally fought our way to our destination, we wondered whether our driver genuinely spoke poor English and genuinely was not familiar with our hotel? After all, the sign had changed, providing a reasonable explanation for the difficulty. Had we been beating up on a well-intentioned driver for no reason? No matter; we had battled with Delhi’s taxi drivers and won—or almost won, as we would find the next morning. You see, the next morning, as we loitered around the lobby of our hotel, we noticed the same driver that had such difficulty in finding this place a scant eight hours earlier. Not only was he well familiar with this hotel and the name by which we were referring to it, but it was his principal haunt for picking up fares! To top it off, he noticed us as we noticed him, and greeted us with a warm morning’s greeting spoken in a perfect English which was conspicuously absent the night before. He had been ruthlessly attempting to scam us. And while this verification made us all the more pleased with having prevailed in our battle, the victory was somewhat incomplete, as we regretted ever having a moment’s doubt about the man’s intentions the night before. It’s just another part of the Indian experience. As far as I can tell, people love hearing about the hardships of travel. Sure, people also love hearing about the wonder of exotic cultures and sights, but start spinning a tale of real travel hardship, and a perverse voyeurism sometimes takes hold. I'm no different; when I hear such a tale, all I can think of is how happy I am that I wasn't the poor sap to whom such horrible misfortune occurred, all the while thinking, of course, that such things couldn't, wouldn't, happen to me. So it is in that spirit that I'll share the following tale of woe. Nothing overly dramatic; merely a tale of such extreme discomfort that perhaps by sharing it, I can cathartically cleanse myself of the trauma I endured. The day began like most travel days: an early wake up with travel by rickshaw to a 7:30 am bus bound from Varanasi, India for the Nepalese border, some 9 hours distant. Things immediately got off to a bad start, as we were sitting in what were, arguably, the 2 worst seats in the entire bus: the very back row, squeezed into the middle of a bench designed for 4 (maybe 5), but where 6 adults were assigned to sit. Buying our tickets at the last minute left us with such poor seat assignments. So we are sitting in the back row, Kelly and I crammed in with 4 others. No room to move--leg to leg, hip to hip--all lined up along the hot, cramped back row. And as if the overcrowding wasn't bad enough, the tremor of each bump or pothole in the bump and pothole filled road is amplified through our rears, along our spine, and into our brains. Sitting in the back of a bus can, at times, be like sitting on an out of control see-saw. Not very comfortable, and jarring under the best of circumstances. But oh well. We've endured plenty of long, uncomfortable, rides. No big deal: we've been on worse before and no doubt we'll be on worse in the future. Then, roughly 6 hours into the ride, things take a horrible turn. Sadly, diarrhea is a fact of travel life. Bad food and/or water will ultimately catch up to you, particularly when traveling in the less developed world for the length of time we have been traveling. To date, however, we've been very lucky, with neither of us suffering from any severe bouts. That was about to change. A quick travel medicine primer. There are 2 principal types of diarrhea: protozoal and bacterial. In describing the bacterial variety, it is often characterized by the sudden onset of the illness; a discomfort such that you can recall precisely when it occurred. Well, let me tell ya. I was hit with some serious, sudden onset, bacteria. But at the time, I wasn't sure what it was. One minute I was passing the time, talking with Kelly and then, suddenly, it hit, and I was telling Kelly I couldn't talk as I needed all my strength to fight the unknown pains which had suddenly wracked my abdomen. Did I have diarrhea, was I going to puke, or was it something else? It wasn't pretty. "What's going on?...what do I have?...just a little stomach ache, right, no worries." So I'm in an amazingly cramped and hot bus, in the most cramped of all the seats in the back-row. I have no access to a window for either fresh air or in the event I need to vomit. The bus is rambling along, bringing more jolts to my body with every bump, and, since we had recently stopped, the promise of another stop is, at best, an hour or two away. And I'm in mind-numbing pain, mustering all my strength and resolve to endure my discomfort, which is significant. It all could not have happened at a worse time. "I... am ...in ...hell--what have I done to deserve this; God, why are you punishing me." It was time to rally and allow my strength of will to carry the day. I would get through this; surely the pain would subside and ultimately pass. Maybe a bit more oxygen--deep, full, breaths. "Wheew.......wheew..........wheew." But no luck, as the pain continued. Alright, a bit of meditation. As a reasonably religious person, I'll often recite Hail Marys or Our Fathers for relaxation/meditation. The rote of the recital helps take my mind off whatever may be troubling me. "Alright, Rich, just focus--good thoughts and good feelings." So 30 to 40 minutes of recital and the pain is still there and, in fact, is intensifying. "When in God's name is this heathen going to stop the bus and give us a toilet or food break! I've already turned to prayer to take the edge off, to no avail. The suffering is really beginning to take hold. "Please Lord, help me." At about this time, the cold sweats make their appearance, and my clammy skin looks like it's covered in early morning dew. My mind is adrift...a cosmic swirl of pain, as I'm struggling to hold it together. I'm sweating like Nixon in the back row of an Indian bus bound for Nepal, wave after wave of nausea is pounding my body incessantly, and I have no relief in sight. "For the love of God, please stop this bus--can't you see we all need a break!" Periodically, the bus would slow, nearly stopping, and I would feel a surge of excitement that, finally, the bus would stop and some sort of relief would be mine. But each time my spirits would sink as the bus would amble on, hitting yet more and more bumps and potholes, jiggling my insides like the clogs on a River Dancer. Then, for some reason I still can't explain, both my arms from the shoulders down began to tingle and went numb! I was sinking, and fast. "Please stop the bus....please stop the bus....please stop the bus." Finally, it was clear that something had to give. The stop I had been praying about for close to 90 minutes had yet to intercede on my behalf. I was at that dangerous point where I knew that I was in imminent danger of soiling myself, vomiting, or both. There were no two ways about it. The pressure throughout the whole of my body was so great, I quite honestly thought my eyes were going to burst from my head at precisely the same time as my bowels would combust. I thought of making a dash to the front of the bus and imploring the driver to stop, but I was quite concerned that I wouldn't make it. But, yes, the bus did need to stop or it was going to get awfully messy. "Alright, Rich, no time to be a hero--if you don't get some relief soon it's going to get ugly--do the sensible thing and have Kelly ask the driver to stop; she's a girl, they'll stop for her." So I asked that she go to the front on my behalf--"tell the driver I'll give him a 100 rupees if he stops the bus so I can get sick." "Hang on...just hang on." Miraculously, just shortly after Kelly worked her way to the front, the bus pulled over. Kelly worked her magic again; it was up to me to make it to the front, exit the bus without incident, and relieve myself of whatever was ailing me in the privacy of roadside bushes. "Easy does it, easy does it." A feeling of calm and peace swept over me as I began moving toward the front of the bus, knowing that sweet comfort would soon be mine. As I did so, the nausea ceased and I then knew full well that an onset of the runs was the culprit, and there was only one cure. But where? We had stopped in the middle of a small town, with a row of small buildings facing me as I stepped from the bus. "No time to try to find a bathroom....there....behind the buildings; this is India, no one will care." Off I sauntered, penguin-like, as I tried to maintain as much pressure as possible on what was, then, an exceedingly critical portion of my anatomy. As I rounded the buildings, my eyes darted from side to side as I quickly tried to find the best place to do what had to be done. Directly behind the buildings provided the most privacy, but an old man was nearby, apparently relieving himself in the far more common road-side manner. "This is no time for modesty, Rich...we've got a blazing code-red going here...get to work before it's too late...the old man could care less...hell, he's doing it himself." So there I am, squatting away, not realizing that a joy and pleasure like this was possible from so demeaning a circumstance. But my bliss was short lived, as the man who I thought was my ally turned on me and began yelling and ranting at me in Tamil, his native tongue. Apparently, he did take great offense at my most uncouth of actions. I could neither blame him or help it. I just wanted him to go away. "I'm sorry.....I'm sorry....enough already, I'm sick....please, just go away....will the indignity never cease?!" And finally, it ended. The pain had subsided, the man stopped his yelling, the bacterial voiding was complete. I sheepishly made my way back to the bus, almost proud that I had endured what I had endured. Nietzsche wrote "that which does not kill me makes me stronger." Clearly, he was reflecting on travels through India when he coined these timeless words. 26 March 2000--Lukla, Nepal I am, admittedly, a mildly skittish flyer. Not paranoid, but suffice it to say that often, though not always, when I board a plane I am somewhat concerned. And flights like the one we had today remind me why. Like most, I am not particularly thrilled about boarding small, prop planes. But the excitement of flying deep within the Himalaya, coupled with the excitement over beginning our trek, put my concern about flying far into the recesses of my mind. The short flight from Kathmandu to Lukla is a beautiful one, as we soared over the small villages and low-lying mountains and headed deeper and deeper into the Himalaya. The sight of the jagged, snow-covered peaks was a wondrous sight, as they stretched for miles and miles along the horizon. As we approached the runway in Lukla, occasional turbulence and gusts made for a reasonably thrilling ride. That we were in such close proximity with mountain upon mountain added to the fun, as we were quite pleased to be flying on such a clear day (less some of these peaks went unnoticed by the pilots). And then something amazing happened. As I sat in the 2nd row of the 10 row mini-plane, I looked through the open cockpit door to see one of the two pilots holding a 35 mm camera and methodically taking a picture! Surely, there was something in the Nepalese flying regulations that said something to the effect that "generally, pilots should not take photos while flying." My first thought was that an overzealous tourist in the first row had passed her camera to the pilot to take a photo of the magnificent scenery. Yet this thought was quickly dispelled as he continued to take photos, paying little mind to the controls around him and the other niceties of flying an aircraft. To all of this, as mountains whizzed perilously close (or so it seemed to me) to our window, and as the turbulence continued, and as we began what felt like a nose-dive descent to what I knew was a very short, gravel-covered runway carved into a mountain where one chance at landing was all we would get, I had two principal reactions. The first was to take comfort in the pilots behavior: this flight and landing clearly must be so routine, such a non-event, that his relaxed attitude warranted comfort. He wasn't worrying, so why should I worry? My second, more powerful, reaction was that this was precisely the sort of lackadaisical attitude that bred mistakes and tragedy, with me and Kelly sadly aboard this nimwit's plane. Yet there he was, adjusting his zoom, snapping away. Meanwhile, we continued our nose-dive descent, and I had a moment of clarity--it became painfully apparent why I am concerned with flying. If you saw your pilot taking photos in the midst of an inhospitable, zero-defect flying atmosphere like this, you'd be scared of flying as well. 12 April 2000: Kathmandu, Nepal Today, after 18 days together, we said goodbye to our entire trekking staff of 12. We had such a wonderful time; we truly will miss them, their kindness, and their friendship. Nevertheless, it was awfully nice getting to our hotel, enjoying a long, hot shower, and looking forward to the prospects of a good nights sleep on a bed between clean sheets. Ahh, the little things. 14 April 2000: Kathmandu, Nepal Well, it looks like Egypt is our next port of call. We had planned on flying from Kathmandu to Amman, Jordan, and then traveling overland to Egypt and then on to Israel. But as we were ready to buy our tickets to fly out on Monday, the 17th, the travel agent informs us that we need an onward ticket (i.e. a ticket to leave their country) in order for Qatar Airways (yes, Qatar is a country in the Middle East) to allow us to board the plane. This was a problem for us, as we were only buying a one way ticket, given our plans to leave Jordan by land. Somewhat skeptical, we asked that he call the airline to confirm that the onward ticket requirement is one that they enforce. Many countries to which we have traveled do, technically, have onward ticket requirements, but we have yet to see them enforced. But the airline confirmed that this was in fact a policy by which they adhered (we still don't really believe it, but our hands are somewhat tied--we would hate to show up only to be forced to get on a plane back to Kathmandu). We then checked to see if Egypt had a similar policy, as another option was to fly to Cairo first, and then cross by land to Jordan (essentially executing our original plan in reverse). They did and, as we would be flying Qatar Airways again, we had the same problem with not being allowed on the plane in the first instance absent the onward ticket. With Egypt, however, the onward ticket requirement is waived if you have a visa for entry prior to arrival at the Cairo airport. Visas are available upon arrival at the airport, but they are also available in advance from Egyptian embassies. So getting the visa in advance was the route we decided to take. We then hurried away from the travel agent's office toward the Egyptian Embassy, which was scheduled to close in 45 minutes. As it was Friday, we wanted to get our visa application in process so that we could receive it not later than Monday, in time for the next available flight to Cairo on Tuesday. While some countries (like India, from personal experience) require much more time, we understood that the Egyptian Embassy in Kathmandu operated rather quickly. And, apparently, they do. They were very gracious and quick, and we expect to get our visa on Monday as expected. We are quite excited about hitting both the Middle East and the African continent in one fell swoop. While hitting Egypt first was not what we originally planned, we've come to enjoy the twists and turns of fate and circumstance which invariably alter our travel plans. It's all part of the fun. |
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