Swimming in the Ganges

As for now I am quite confident to state that I have found a positive relationship between the timing of my intended blog posts and the timing of internet cuts, as I find myself yet again without access to this vital medium. However, I expect this cut to last only shortly, or this is my desperate hope, because I have not really been in touch with the world outside India, as is reflected in the recent scarcity of my blog posts as well as in the number of times that I have used Skype during the past weeks, i.e. merely once. Reason for my absence in this respect is me being absent physically, that is, from Delhi. For the past and coming weekends I have been / will be travelling through Northern and Western India, trips that leave my time in Delhi to be solely spend on working.
Let me start with the trip of last weekend, to a mountain town called Rishikesh. It was not a big trip, nor very special, nor had the intention been to make it a special trip, but we just wanted to get out of Delhi to chill out in some nice easy going environment. Plan was to meet Joey on his way back from his long trip to the mountains, as he would pass by Rishikesh. For your information, Joey is how I have started to call my roommate Joao, as I had difficulty pronouncing his Brazilian name, and as for now nigh everyone but the Brazilians here have taken over this nickname. As Wojtek, a Polish friend of mine here, quit shortly before departure it was only me and Johan, a new Dutch roommate here, heading north.
The journey up North, about 200 miles, was typical for India and meets exactly my valuation of how things work here. As you may have expected, this personal opinion is not all too positive. Anyway, Thursday evening at nine o’clock we were supposed to take off at CP, Connaught Place, in the heart of Delhi. The buss reached more or less in time, and there we went, prepared for some long hours of suffering on the crappy Indian roads. For the next two and a half hours we drove through a variety of conglomerations and out-of-city scenes, picking up a bunch of people, and heading towards, what we thought, Rishikesh. However, when I looked through the dusty window two hours after departure I saw to my astonishment the very familiar ring road that surrounds CP. After looking twice, telling Johan that something was wrong with me cause I imagined seeing CP after having left Delhi hours ago, and looking closely for the third time, I could conclude nothing but us really being back at the very place we had started out journey two and a half hours ago. The Indian people staring numb straight ahead around us did not seem to notice, let alone care, of the superfluous amount of time spent in the most random of busses on the worst of roads. And I thought India could not surprise me anymore.. After having stated that very thought out loud to Johan I was supported in my newly found conviction of ignorance towards the variety of stupidities that Indian people manage to pull of as we reached CP again half an hour later. This time we actually stopped for quite some time to let on people, as Johan and I stared incredulously at each other with clear disbelief expressed on our faces. Hell of a way to start a journey I’d say…
After all, we did reach Rishikesh eventually, that is, at six o’clock in the morning, as we had left Delhi clearly after midnight. Already considering our previous encounter with Indian standards of efficiency as a nice valuable experience we were eager to get out of the crappy bus and start looking for a place to stay. As two British blokes (technically an Irish guy and an English guy though both living in London and thus jointly being referred to as being British in this story) had been sitting in front of us during the entire bus drive and as being the only non-Indian people in a wide range we ended up having a joint wake-up coffee at the shaggy bar next to the buss top whilst the deep darkness quickly made way for daylight. I will safe you the information of our struggle for a decent place to spend the night, as we eventually dropped our bags in a nice cozy hotel with Ganges-view, not to be compared with the famous Donau-view offered by the Four Seasons hotel in Budapest however. The day was nicely spent roaming around the town and villages at close proximity, looking at all kinds of cheap crap displayed at a wide variety of stands and barrows, whilst enjoying the sunlight and the breeze that brought some fresh mountain air. As we found out during the night, the town found itself in a region that appeared to be a ‘dry area’, which meant no alcohol was for sale as well as a prohibition on the sales of any kind of meat. Especially for our British friends this was hard to overcome. By the time the sun set Joey had caught up with us, which meant a happy reunion and true delight to be in his company again. The evening was spent playing chess and poker, which guaranteed a true holiday feeling, which could not be said about sharing one bed with Johan and Joey ;).
The next afternoon we set of for a two-day program that included a stroll up some waterfall in which we ended up swimming, a stay at a camp site with ball games and a bonfire, and subsequently a rafting session on Sunday. The rapids that we encountered on our way downstream had a current comparable to the strength of the flow in which we got into the boat whilst setting off for rafting one year and a half ago in the Alps, which should say enough about the lazy flow on which we floating downriver. However, the mountain scenes were nice, the sun was shining, the few rapids that we encountered were not too bad, and we made the whole thing more exciting by repeatedly throwing each other out of the boat. This implies that I was actually swimming in the Ganges, something I had not expected to do before I set off to India. The one and only Indian person that was part of our ten person crew actually managed to fall out of the boat without being made so by his co-travelers, that is, us, due to the ‘strength’ of the rapid. The frequent drop-outs of other Indian people in other boats made us realize that this was no coincidence. :D
The rest of the Sunday was spent shopping around and enjoying the last hours in the peaceful mountain town, as well as the excellent food provided by the German bakery next door at which we had eaten every meal and more. As Johan and I set off for our journey back to Delhi we were treated another insight in Indian .. well.. craziness. The guy telling us that the bus we had booked was cancelled was hardly any surprise at all, though our experience with the subsequently taken bus cannot be called anything else than lethal. The driver seemed to take challenge in passing by any kind of vehicle, sticking to the wrong side of the road as long as possible, only to dodge the loudly horning truck thundering forward from the opposite direction at the very last moment. It was truly scary and I can speak for the both of us when I say that we were petrified. Stories afterwards acquired from the local plebs here stating that many truck drivers were actually drinking during work shifts, as well as the strikingly high casualty rates found on the internet, grounded our fear for an early death. Fortunately we’re still alive. :D
Arrival at four o’clock in the morning guaranteed a tiring Monday as well as a tiring Tuesday and it is today at Wednesday that I finally feel rested again. Plans for coming weekend to travel to Rajistan, the Western state that is covered mainly by desert, to check out the camel fare (the biggest of India) is also scheduled to be finalized Monday early morning. Same holds for the subsequent weekends.. Big fun but rather tiring ;)
As for now my housemate is fiercely discussing on the phone with the internet provider, who, unless the previous time when we did not pay the bill, has no valid reason to cut off the internet this time. Just to quite his most recent sentence: ‘If I have a problem then you have a problem, OK?’. That’s how Indian people should be dealt with if you want to make them do something.. anything.. that is. Hopefully it’s working out.

• It’s a mere two minutes later after the phone call now and we do have internet access again.. apparently it pays off to act this way :D

As for now it’s time to quit writing.. it’s getting late and I still have loads of stuff to do.
All the best from India, and thanks a lot for all the reactions!!

Ps…

@ Paul: Ja dat huisfeest moet ik maar missen eh.. Helaas, k zal proberen hier een vergelijkbare hoeveelheid alcohol te tanken :D Hoe staat het verder in NL?

@ Goswin: oohw relaxt dat je mijn verhalen ook leest! En SOG providen is altijd een mooie motivatie om te schrijven eh ;)

@ Linda: al plannen voor je eigen reis? Ik hoop dat dit verhaal je weer wat SOG ruimte geeft :D

@ Knuffelpad: hoe was je vakantie in Turkije dikzak? Moet wel tof zijn geweest eh :D En geef me maar weer eens een update over de gildebroeders! Vind ik altijd geweldig om te lezen :)