The Journey begins!

When travelling in India, patience really is a virtue. It fact, it is a bold faced necessity. No where I have ever been does patience come in handier than in Mother India. My first lesson in patience came before I had even left Iowa: at the Cedar Rapids Airport. Upon checking in at the Delta counter, my VISA could not be processed and kept coming back as not acceptable. I had all the requirements: extra passport pages, a valid expiration date, a VISA for the country that I wanted to visit, issued by the country itself. Again and again, we tried, calls were made, we were put on hold again and again. Multiple agents tried with no luck. After over an hour, and having to call up to the gate to hold the plane, they finally got it to work. It turns out it was a computer glitch on the computer at the check in counter. One thing that I did think was very interesting was at one point, the ticket agent (who happened to be African- American) was prompted by someone on the phone to ask me what my nationality was. She told them that I was standing right in front of her, and she covered the receiver and asked me “you’re white, right? Caucasian?” I laughed and said yes, i was indeed American. When we got the VISA to go through, I laughed and told her that I think I was being racially profiled. She again apologized and told me this was one of her first days on the job.

The rest of the trip was smooth as molasses. A very quick layover in Detroit, less than one hour in fact. When I arrived in Amsterdam, I had about 4 hours to kill. I remembered that there was a meditation center in the airport, so I went there and meditated for two hours. It was my longest meditation yet, outside of a Vipassana retreat. For those of you who meditate, you will know exactly what I mean when I say it was the most comforting time imaginable. After standing in lines and maneuvering through large crowds in a strange places, sitting on the cushion in total silence in the middle a major airport was like being home. I walked out totally relaxed and centered, very calm and ready for my next leg of the journey.

I actually love solo travelling, because there is no one I need to check with before I make a decision. My mistakes are mine to own, my time is mine to spend any way that I choose. If I don’t feel like talking to pass the time, I can just be quiet and take in everything around me. It is a very relaxing way to travel. On the Amsterdam flight I sat across from the most adorable ten month old boy. His mother was from Dehli, but she and her husband lived in San Francisco. They were travelling back to Dehli for the boy to meet his grandparents for the first time. He was amazingly calm and quiet, and just a delight. I had so much fun with him. He actually reminded me so much of my two year old vizsla, Etter. He demanded his mother’s attention constantly. When she would reach for a drink from her mug, he would reach for it as well. He wanted to be held or to sit very close to her at all times, and didn’t like it all if she didn’t pay constant attention to him. But he never cried, and had eyes and a smile that could melt a glacier. I think anyone would find it very hard to say “no” to him!

I arrived very early at Dehli, close to 1:30 am so it was not busy at all, and I got right through immigration and customs. Again, the man at customs was on one of his first days on the job, so it took while to be processed, but he was very friendly and we had fun chatting in my broken Hindi. (Actually, when all was said and done, I discovered that he was very hard of hearing and didn’t actually understand much of my hindi banter!)

My driver from the hotel picked me up and helped me purchase my very first SIM card! Whenever I had travelled before, I had always just used my ATT carrier’s international plan. But this time, being here for two and a half months, the cost of using the plan was insane. I wouldn’t be making any international calls, just surfing and texting and posting photos, so getting a local SIM card was much more cost effective. Plus, now I have my very own Indian phone number that I can use whenever I am here. I just need to reload my card each time with more data and I am good to go! The roads were nearly deserted at this time of morning, so unlike the insanely craziness of daytime Dehli driving. My driver was from a little village up north in Himachal Pradesh. He said there were maybe 20 houses in his village. But like many who live here, he had to move to Dehli to find work. He had no formal education so had found work as a contract driver for the hotel. He told me that he worked every day with no days off. Everyday, he left his house and took a bus for one hour, then took the metro for another hour to get to work. And at the end of the day, he would repeat the same process. His days were spent in a tiny basement room at the hotel, where the drivers all hung out waiting for calls. He said the work is very tiring but he is very glad to have it. Although his English was broken, he understood every question I asked him (and i asked him a LOT of questions!) and I could understand every answer he gave me. We had a wonderful time chatting, and he was one of the most pleasant persons I have met on my travels.

One thought that comes back to me again and again when I come to India, is that it seems Indians overall concentrate on what they have, whereas people in the West seem to concentrate on what they don’t have.

My friend from Bodhgaya will arrive this a.m. on the train. He, like many Indians who live here has not travelled very far outside his immediate place of residence ever. He is going to join me here in Delhi for a couple days before I go on to Varanasi. We are going to do a Delhi Food walk, a old town bicycle tour and visit the Musim area and the mosque. He really wants to go to the Red Fort also, so we will do that today before our food tour this evening. Tune in tomorrow for more of this wild adventure!

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