After months of first thinking about, then planning, then committing to this trip, the day finally arrived. I’d spent the last week frenetically gathering the things I felt I needed for the journey – anti-malarial pills, enough Cipro to cure a small village, a light weight, British commando sleeping bag (for those bed-bug ridden hotels), a new wheeled backpack with detachable daypack, oh the list goes on and on. I have a good laugh every now and then just thinking of all the material things I accumulated for this ultimate in non-material journey. Lastly, I’d finished up my project at my client and closed down shop to clear my calendar, despite the fact I could probably have kept on working indefinitely. Everything boiled down to the last few moments waiting for the taxi to arrive and take me to the airport.
Leave-taking is never easy, but knowing I was going for better than a month made it hard on everyone. Margaret was despondent, begging me not to go; unable to comprehend (as a 7 year old) why I would choose to leave her for so long. Camille was much more stoic, playing the elder sister, but I could tell it was hurting her as well. I almost couldn’t get myself to leave, but after a final round of goodbyes, including thanking Camille for her support, I found myself in the taxi, whisked off to the airport some 3 hours before my flight (early as usual).
I expected a mess at the Singapore Airlines counter and wanted to get there early to ensure I had a decent seat assignment (not having had one assigned due to my ultra low fair basis – probably beyond “Q”), however I arrived at the check in counter to find an orderly line of perhaps a dozen people ahead of me. We haltingly moved forward until I found myself lighter by a piece of luggage and a boarding pass in hand. It is true, by the way, what you hear about Singapore Airlines – they certainly are the nicest, friendliest airline I’ve ever flown (which I think says a lot having maintained the highest status on three airlines at once and having flown over 100 flights a year for 6 years straight.)
There’s not a lot to do in the international terminal of San Francisco airport at 9 PM on a Sunday night. After perusing the requisite bookshops outside customs and security (and failing to find a single interesting title), I decided to take a look on the other side. Once again, I was early enough in the evening to avoid lines or commotion, and got through in a matter of minutes.
After wandering a bit, I decided to go to United Airline’s Red Carpet Room (I had one month left on my annual membership) and relax. The place was empty so I found a spot in the back of the business services area and decided to do some yoga to prepare for this 20+ hour journey I was about to embark on. Almost thirty minutes into my practice, after a cleansing 10 minute headstand, there was a tremendous ripping sound as I managed to completely shred my comfortable silk Hawaiian shirt (my favorite, black silk with colorful flowers) in a forward bend. Fortunately I’d brought a change for Singapore and I was able to change there on the spot. After a bit more stretching, I got a couple of bottles of orange juice for the flight and headed to the gate – about 1 ½ hours early.
Waiting and waiting – if you’ve ever traveled you’ll understand. I purposefully sat outside the boarding area (down the escalators) and continued my stretching as I looked for Henny. More waiting; cultivating a sense of timelessness, almost a meditative state as I purposefully avoid looking at clocks or my watch. There were supposed to be several others from our group on the flight, but I knew not what they looked like – Henny was my one link to them. Finally Henny arrived, at a more reasonable 30 minutes before boarding time, and she connected he dots to the remainder of the group – Ellen, Annie, Laura and Jennie. Rapid hellos, the group wanders to the boarding line, and we’re on the flight.
The rest of the trip – sitting, reading, eating (great Indian vegetarian meals); disembarking in Hong Kong during a lay-over getting lost in the terminal looking for the departure section (there are no markings for “return to flight departures” once you get out into terminal, you have to guess that the door labeled “Exit to Ferries” behind a security cordon is the way); amazed at the body temperature cameras that HK and Singapore use, to spot potential SARS victims I’m told – I spent 5 minutes watching the colorful screens as the security personnel scanned everyone getting off my fight as I waited for my companions to disembark.
Group yoga in the departure lounge (raised a few eyebrows there …), checking emails at the free kiosks, and finally the flight to Singapore.
After much discussion, we made group trip via commuter train into the Malay district of Singapore. Temples, fruit, lounging on the grass, return to the terminal, a thunderstorm on the way.
A shower and shave in the airport hotel ( jokingly I said I’d willingly pay $50 for a shower, turns out it was all of about $US 5 for a shower, shaver, shaving cream, fresh towels and a cool mineral water to shower your insides afterwards) and finally, the final 5 hour flight, which, after 17 hours of flight and 8 hours of layover stretched forever into the night.
Watching the Indian landscape unfold beneath us at 10:30 at night as we approached, and then circled Dehli and made our final approach, I was ready to be on the ground for a while. Strangely, I arrived feeling refreshed and ready to go. (This changed in a few hours as I crashed into the fleabag hotel I was checked into, but I get ahead of myself).
I waited for all my traveling companions to disembark before heading to customs. A long line snaking back and forth awaited me – we were at the end of the line with perhaps 15 or 20 people behind us. Most of us had packed for the cold – after all we’re headed to the Himalayas aren’t we? – and struggle with the fleece or winter coats in the heat.
The people behind us are interesting in their behavior – they continually try to push past us in the line, but do so in a non-aggressive way; it’s difficult to explain how this works, but I had a great time watching my reaction to their gentle pushing of a bag past my ankles, or sliding up to the point where their groins practically rubbed against my butt.
Finally I made it to a customs officer and, having scrutinized my passport, visa and entry declaration, I was the proud recipient of a stamped passport and was able to proceed into the baggage claim area.
Baggage claim was a zoo to put it mildly. People running everywhere, carts loaded, no over-loaded with bags, boxes tied with rope and taped. Luggage toppled off carts over to fall on the ground, barely missing the children running about on the tiled floor. Old women were struggling with bags three times their weight. Several of our bags appeared to have gone missing and only after asking four or five officials were we able to find them where they’d been stashed in a corner.
My bags had appeared almost immediately, both wheeled, so I took them over to the Thomas Cook’s to exchange a couple hundred dollars into rupees while I waited for everyone else. Finally, at about 1:30 AM (3 hours after we’d landed), we were ready to brave the final customs checkpoint and head out into the lobby to look for the person who was to greet us. Fervently hoping they, for we had no idea who was meeting us other than it was Rinpoche’s cousin Tsering (who could be either male or female, we weren’t sure) would still be there we entered the sweltering greeting area and looked around.
A few minutes of search uncovered Tsering, a tall Tibetan man who wears a perpetual smile – one of the calmest and self assured people I’ve met in a long time. Tsering has an overwhelming faith in things working out – “No worries” is his motto, and strangely everything seemed to work perfectly if he had any involvement in it.
The parking lot was mass chaos – thousands of people, hundreds of cars, all trying to occupy the same space at the same time. This, as it turned out, is a fairly typical Indian situation – India seems more crowded than China to me, with people almost having to stand on other people due to crowding. We piled into the SUV and, after what seemed to be almost armed combat - honking, gesticulating, a shout here or there - we made our way out of the airport and on to the 40 minute drive to the hotels.
2:30 AM and the streets were still busy – Vespas, motorcycles, little cars, enormous trucks, gaudily painted in bright oranges and yellow, with “Please Honk” painted across their rears (and everyone did – there’s a never ceasing cacophony of honks as you go anywhere in India – it’s almost as if it’s obligatory, however there’s no anger or aggressiveness behind the honks – it’s a part of the signaling drivers give to each other), little auto rickshaws and donkey drawn carts all share the same road. Vehicles cut in and out of the traffic, narrowly missing each other – all in a moment’s navigation.
We came upon another group of travelers from our flight (from Vancouver and British Columbia, the first of several groups we were to get to know along the way – originally we’d met up in the waiting area in Singapore) that had been rear ended and our driver stopped to make sure they were OK. Ellen, our resident physician was out and at their aide in an instant; homeopathic pills here, recommendations there. Fortunately a sore neck appeared to be the worst thing anyone had. After using a mobile phone to make sure that another vehicle was on the way, we continued.
It was hot, almost too hot after 2 days on an air-conditioned plane. Singapore had been hot and humid, this was just hot. And it smelled like they were burning crap (probably were), as the perpetual smog that seems to engulf and embrace all of India wrapped itself around us and assailed our olfactory senses.
The driver refused to enter Manju Ka Tilla – a bit disconcerting at 3 in the morning. As things turn out the alleyways are too tight, the corners too sharp, for a large vehicle to enter, but in the dead of the night on the side of what appeared to be a dusty and abandoned highway, it was a bit much to offload our luggage, and then drag it through the stone filled streets.
The alleys of Manju Ka Tilla were abandoned, except for a stray dog or two, as we lugged our baggage through the streets. An auto rickshaw had been commandeered for the larger, unwheeled pieces, and we walked the four or so blocks into the village area. Tsering had been unable to get us all rooms in the same hotel, so we needed to make multiple stops. I was the first to go in – my room apparently was on the 4th floor of the Potala Hotel. Tsering woke the night watchman, had a quick conversation and left me in the Hotel lobby, waiting for the proprietress to get me a key. The lobby was a grimy little room behind a folding metal gate, a couch (now made as a bed for the watchman) and a well worn upholstered chair facing a low coffee table. A counter with a box on the wall for the room keys (actually, as I was to find out, to keyed padlocks that served as room locks) and to the side a locked chilled beverage cabinet full of water. To the right was a wall with windows that separated the lobby from the hotel’s corridor-like restaurant (which in the morning I was to discover had excellent food), and beyond the registration desk a stairway led up to the 5 stories of rooms – now completely blacked out due to a loss of electrical power in the hotel, although strangely the lobby had electric light.
As luck would have it, the owner couldn’t figure out whether I had a reservation, and told me that, absent one, she was completely sold out and that I couldn’t have a room – all this at 3 in the morning with no Tsering about. I couldn’t remember Tsering’s name at this point, and hence was unable to find the reservation he had assured me was there. The dusty alleyway outside with the wandering dogs was looking decidedly uninviting after two days of travel, and my body was beginning to tell me that I needed to be supine, anywhere would do.
A young Japanese couple came in at this point; I’d met them in Singapore waiting in the lounge, and they (of course) had a reservation – the owner gladly took them to their room as I continued to wait. Finally she took pity on me and offered to put me in a room until we sorted things out in the morning (so much for being sold out). After begging a candle and a lighter off the night watchman, I followed her up to the 4th floor and into a tiny room with three cots arranged around the walls, what proved to be an uncloseable window (attested to by the numerous mosquito bites I found upon my legs arms and face in the morning, and a very interesting bathroom to the side (hey – at least I had a bathroom). I had fun walking in the dark back to the ground floor for my luggage (I couldn’t figure out how to carry a lighted candle with the 60 plus pounds of luggage in two bags back up the stairs) and, at a little past 3:30 in the morning I was finally able to unpack a bit and crawl into the cot for a restless 5 hours of sleep.
The candle light flickered in the small room as I inspected the costs and selected the least offensive looking of the three to bed down in. I inspected the bathroom off to the side of the room and marveled at its simplicity – a sink with a drainpipe that snaked to a hole in the center of the tiled room, commode in the corner practically under a waterspout in the wall for showers. No toilet paper (the first inkling I had that I must carry TP for the remainder of my trip), a large plastic bucket (remnants of a bucket of oil or some other cooking product) placed in the corner for those desiring a “bath” rather than a shower.
After taking stock of the room and unpacking the next day’s clothes, I climbed into the selected cot and pulled the woolen covers up over my body in a vain attempt to avoid being bitten during the night. Cursing my lack of foresight in purchasing a flashlight, I blew out the candle and settled in for what I hoped to be a decent night’s sleep. (Mosquitoes and bedbugs plagued me terribly – I put bug juice on but they seemed impervious to its powers – but somehow I managed. Put it down to shear exhaustion that I got any sleep, for in the morning I had at least a dozen bites – and was fervently hoping that the anti-malarial medication I’d begun taking a day ago had already taken effect.
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