Incredible !ndia Part 3

"That was fast?" I said as the bus came to a stop amongst the numerous bicycle rickshaws parked in front Tibetan Refuge community. It was 7 am, and only 13 hours since we had left Dharamsala, and for whatever reason, nearly 4 hours less than the drive there. Thay Hai had mercifully scheduled a day of rest back at the Tibetan Refuge area in Delhi before we boarded a train for an overnight ride to Lucknow, and that rest was definitely welcome. Back in the Tara guesthouse we slept through most of the afternoon for what we knew would be another tough stretch. After a long lecture at the end of dinner about the many dangers of the Delhi train station the circus began. The directions to pack lightly for a highly mobile trip were followed by very few of us, subsequently the 48 pilgrims, nuns, and monks had about 100 suitcases and boxes, many of which were very large. Just to get the luggage to the bus at the front gate we needed half a dozen bicycle rickshaws came to collect the load spilling out of the front lobby. At railway station the real danger turned out to be the amount of stuff and people we were trying to move in an orderly way off the bus and onto the right train platform. After nearly 45 minutes of chaos the porters, identified by a small brass tag they wore around their arms, managed to get our luggage loaded on to several carts and moving towards the train platform. Broken up into small groups of 5 to 6 people with a porter pulling a cart full of our luggage and one designated leader (a job I found myself nominated to do) we waited on the platform for the train that would take us to Lucknow for about 30 minutes (The train ended up about an hour and a half late, which was a definite plus for us given how long it took to get the group moved from one place to another.) Because of concerns about having our luggage lost or stolen if we placed it into the luggage car it was decided that we would keep our luggage with us in the passenger car, so once the train came to a stop I began to frantically manhandle each piece of my groups luggage up the stairs and into or bunk section. Of course there was a good reason for having a designated luggage car. The passenger cars were divided into 5 sections with 8 bunks per section and a very narrow passage way running down the length of the car, which left very little room for luggage, let lots of large luggage. The poor Indians who shared our compartment waited patiently as we struggled for nearly 20 minutes to find a place for each piece of luggage, eventually loading up one bunk with 4 large pieces when no more room was to be had underneath the bunks. So, after a quick run over to the next rail car to say "goodnight" to Mom and Huyen I clambered up to the top bunk, put on my jacket and a pair of socks while hunched over to try and fight of the Arctic like breeze blowing from the A/C vent a few feet away from my feet. Exhausted I quickly fell asleep soon after the train pulled away from the station aided by back and forth rocking familiar to train travelers and babies everywhere.

"Damn that was cold!" I exclaimed. "Yes, I didn't sleep at all" agreed Mr. Tai who was sitting up in the bunk across the way from me. I had ended up wrapping myself in the heavy wool blanket I had dismissed earlier at the steamy Delhi train station. I even resorted to wrapping my head in my ao trang (the lovely robe you all see me wearing in the photos) in an attempt to fight of the cold. Sometime in the early morning they had turned off the A/C and I climbed down from my bunk to warm up and go see how Mom and Huyen had fared. The light pouring in from the large windows on either side of the train, and as I made it through our car to the next most of the passengers were waking up, moving around, and lining up to use the surprisingly "OK" restroom. By the time we did pull into the station at 9 am, nearly 2 hours behind schedule, the chill of the night before had been forgotten, and looking out on to the sweltering platform I thought to myself you should be careful what you wish for. After the locals had left we started unloading our luggage, piling it up into a few small mountains while our new fixer, Mr Pradeep Saxena, gave instructions to the small army of uniformly red-robed and elderly porters. I marveled as these porters, some of them who had to be 60's, loaded up their long narrow wooden carts and then hauled them up and over the bustling train platforms to the bus waiting outside. Getting all the luggage into the bus was another feat altogether and most of the porters stuck around to catch their breathe and enjoy that show. After a surreal stop at a hotel where we were given keys to a number of empty rooms in order to use the facilities we were on our way to Sravasti.

The sun was setting when we finally arrived, but before heading to the hotel we turned off the road to visit the ruins of some stupas of one of Buddha's most greatest patron's, Anathapindika. That night at the hotel a vote at dinner that night meant we would be up at 4 am for a early morning ceremony at the Bodhi Tree. This would mark the start of a routine for the rest trip. Rising early for a ceremony at a scared site then a day on the bus traveling to our next destination and a quick stop at some less significant site before checking into our hotel for a quick dinner and bed. I really loved our short time at the Bodhi Tree and the next day at the birth place of Buddha in Lumbini. The rest of India we saw pass by at 45 miles an hour in the bus like the rest of the hundreds of pilgrims we saw at each site. Our last three days in India were gone before we knew it, and it felt like a dream as Huyen and I left the Vietnamese monastery in Kushinagar at 3 AM to board a plane in Varanasi heading back to Delhi for our 7 hour layover before our flight back to Bangkok.

"Are you doing alright?" I asked Huyen as we sped through the hazy night towards Indira Gandhi International Airport on the four lane elevated highway. Huyen was trying to sleep in my lap, as the food from almost 100 year old Tandoori restaurant we had just visited not 20 yards from the enormous Jama Masjid Mosque was not agreeing with her stomach. So I hardly noticed the cab slowing down as all the vehicles in front of us came to a stop. That's not completely accurate, not all the cars were stopping, some cars were stopping others changing lanes to get over to the far left, and still others just slowing to a crawl. I strained my neck looking out the front of the cab to see what was causing the traffic jam in front of us, but soon realized that there was no overturned Tata truck or errant scared cow on the highway in front of us. What there was was something on the road below the elevated highway. Something so compelling that dozens and dozens of drivers were literally stopping in the far left lane crossing the walking across the other three lanes of traffic to get to the medium and see what was going on below. For several hundred yards these people lined the highway medium staring down at whatever tragedy or comedy had occurred on the bottom part of the highway. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious to see what was going on as well, but I was more concerned about getting to the airport on time so I leaned forward and urged our cab driver onward. Poor guy. He slowed the taxi down to a crawl as he wove his way through all the cars parked randomly across the freeway and craned his neck as far as possible, and if not for his damn passengers would have surely stopped to join his fellow countrymen for the show. I cannot imagine the chaos that would break out if everybody on the 110 Freeway through downtown Los Angeles stopped to look at something on 101, but it seemed entirely unremarkable sitting in the of cab on the way to the airport in Delhi.

"You must come back to and see the real India" said Pradeep as he handed me his business card outside our room at the Vietnamese monastery in Kushinagar. I agreed that it would be great to see some of India's more well known sites, but I couldn't help but think I did see the real India. A country where one can stop seemingly in middle of nowhere in the dead of night to get your flat tire fixed and all the locals will turn up for the show. Where 60 year old men stack hundreds of pounds of luggage on a wooden cart and drag it half a mile up and down a sweltering jam-packed train station for less than a dollar. A country where people from all around the world come to build temples right next to one another and worship an enlightened individual from 2600 years ago each in their cultures own unique way. Where a tilt of the head can mean anything from from "Hello" to "OK, I'll take care of it. Don't worry." And, a country where it's OK to stop in the middle of the freeway and walk across the lanes to see what's going on below. That's the great thing about traveling and opening yourself up to new and "strange" experiences. More than any elaborate palace or grand monument I think it's little moments that give you insight into the "real" country and the culture that can show us just how amazingly different and basically the same we all are. Incredible India indeed.