In the Travel Zone

My just over two days in transit from Kolkata to McLeod Ganj seemed uneventful until I thought back on the time. I had gone into my traveling zone, "just do it," and so took no pictures but it was rather interesting.

First, on the sleeper train from Kolkata to Delhi there was a Kolkatan family going to visit their eldest daughter who's been working just outside Delhi for six months now and still misses home. The younger daughter is finishing 9th grade and was curious to learn if her impressions of the U.S. are accurate. She read quite a bit of my Lonely Planet guidebook because "it gave good balanced info, which she doesn't think she is normally receiving, and because it had useful info for a trip they will take next month. They shared their snacks with me and so I tasted some new foods and tried chewing on a clove. The daughter wore knee-length pants and her mother a sleeveless chudia thar top. I would never have seen either in Tamil Nadu.

In Delhi I decided to continue on by train instead of bus and so needed to wait 12 hours for the train. The drive from the New Delhi Station to the Old Delhi Station was another harrowing autorickshaw experience. My driver inched across on-coming traffic in a cat and mouse game that involved who's chicken and also relied on another rickshaw on our right to blaze the way. Then he went the wrong way in traffic to get around a traffic jam...But we reached our destination and I don't think my hair is much grayer.

I ventured out from the Old Delhi Station twice in search of Internet, but it seems you need to be in New Delhi for Internet shops. I did see a park named after Mahatma Gandhi that no one could use because it was closed off to the public. People slept and rested at the wall surrounding it. Then I saw a street closed off while perhaps 200 Muslim men in maybe 8 rows prayed.

At the Old Delhi Station I was entertained by two monkeys in the rafters. They were actually little smart alecks.

Then a 19-year old college student who has been studying in Delhi for 2 years and was going home to Uttarahand for a 5 day break sat down to chat while she waited for her train. She wore jeans and a sleeveless Indian style top. Her father is a doctor and her mother a beautician. She's the eldest of three children. She's bored with her school's food and thinks only in India are daughters not allowed to travel to far away places on their own. She likes to cook but agrees I won't be able to make authentic India food at home because I won't find the right ingredients.

I also chatted with a young engineer briefly. His father is working at an archaeological dig near Agra. As we watched too many people crowding into 2nd class non-reserve train cars, he told me there is never a limit set on those cars. That's why with my suitcase I have taken to always traveling sleeper car where seats are reserved. The young man originally sat down when he noticed me watching 6 Muslim men get off a packed train car, come over near my bench, spread a blanket and pray toward Mecca. His first comment was, "Only in India."

On the sleeper train from Delhi to Pathankot I met an interesting couple. She was from Ireland living in Thailand and he from Colombia living in Sweden when they met in Dharamsala two years ago. They now have an 11-month old son with reddish blond hair, blue eyes and cherub cheeks. They said he has pimples on his cheeks from people wanting to pinch them and the have started refusing photo requests. Twenty a day was invasive. The father is a textile teacher in Sweden but has just learned to hang glide which is what they are doing in India this trip. He's wondering if he can make a living giving tandem rides. I didn't offer to be his first customer.

On the bus from Pathankot to Mcleod Ganj I sat next to a young man who was going home to his village near Dharamsala. His brother was getting married. My seat companion has been working in Delhi for a year. He works for Cognizant, an outsourcing company. His branch of the company is called Market Rx...they analyze the sales records of pharmaceutical salesmen in the U.S. He and the young engineer wore jeans and plaid cotton shirts. This was something I never saw in Sivakasi.

I saw many military trucks and a large military base as we left Pathankot and mentioned how close we were to Pakistan. He said not that close. I showed him the map and said it looks close. Yes, but it is 300 km. OK.

When we reached Dharamsala the bus stopped to have a tire fixed. It was losing air while we took those climbing curves. While waiting I met a woman from Germany who in her mid 30s has quit her advertising job because she was working 60-80 hours a week. She wants to find more meaningful work or a job with more normal hours so she can have time for something more meaningful on the side. She will travel for 3 months: half in India and half in South America. She arrived in Delhi from Germany and after 3 days was overwhelmed and on edge so decided to get away to Dharamsala/ McLeod Ganj.

It is more peaceful here. It's smaller... a population of 20,000. The air is fresh and clean and crisp. The view down the mountain is beautiful and the fact that I can/have seen the Himalayas amazing. Today there was only a peek through the clouds but yesterday on the bus I saw quite a bit of the mountains.

What was unique about these past 3 days was how many people I met who spoke an English I could understand relatively easily and so conversations flowed. Debashmita, the 9th grader, complimented me on my clear and easy to understand English. I had to smile.