Again… travel day on the World Race is never what you expect. There is something about venturing into the unknown that doesn’t scare me anymore… probably because nothing ever happens like I want/expect it to. After an amazing couple of days at debrief, I was all refueled and recharged and excited to jump into these last few months (crazy) with my new team and new leader… praise the Lord.
Before I dive into this very ridiculous and elaborate tale of traveling from India to Nepal, I would like to say that it would be rather unfair to call it simply travel day. I have, therefore, decided to so name this time in my life “travel week (from the pit).”
We were set to leave in three groups from Hyderabad on the 28th and I was lucky number two set to leave at 1 pm. No, this isn’t that show the Amazing Race, but it seriously feels like it especially on days like this. I packed all of my things into my pack, that has gotten significantly smaller since month one, and said goodbye to my favorite country. We bused to the airport which decided not to take us to the front of the airport, but rather kicked us out, packs and all to take a shuttle. To the surprise and frustration of many Indians around us, we finally made it to the airport and successfully checked in.
Our flight wasn’t for about an hour and I was starving, so a few of us got the best sandwich I’ve had since white water rafting and an iced cappuccino (no need to talk about how that made me feel). After forever, we got our food just in time to make it to the last call for our flight. We hurried on and had a pretty uneventful flight yet again. We were, however, served a complimentary shot glass size of water… thank you Air India. When we landed we were met by the group that left at 10 am that morning and were told that we could not leave to get food, there wasn’t any around, there were a ton of mosquitoes, only one plug to share among like 20 electronically dependent world racers, and that there may be 50 or so Indians staring at the shanty town that they had created to spend the night and wait for the third team to arrive in the morning.
I used the bathroom that had soap, toilet paper, a seat, and I felt better. Long story short… I shared a mat to sleep on under florescent lighting on the floor of the Delhi baggage claim floor and woke up the next morning with the understanding that I would be on a bus to Nepal that day for 15 hours to the boarder and another 6 hours to Kathmandu. Bought pizza for breakfast, water and lugged a year’s worth of my belongings to a relatively nice bus. It had air conditioning, which I may have been ecstatic about, and a free coke when I boarded… things were looking up.
Our fabulous logistics man, Ryan, came onto the bus and after his lovely welcome given over bus microphone told us that the timing was a little off-we were set to take the 33 hour trip by bus to Nepal… ok… ::sigh::… at least I can sleep/ hang out/ rest/ journal and catch upon anything else that was left… No, I quickly learned that you cannot really do any of these things on a third world country bus… especially through India. The best way I can describe it is: imagine yourself on an old roller coaster (one of those wooden ones that should have been torn down 5 years ago) and then imagine trying to sleep on it. Seriously… I can’t think of anything closer.
So there I was… cramped in a very small space, trying to get comfortable and, again, to make a long story short, or shorter, we visited more than one sick squatty in the middle of nowhere and ate at this weird restaurant while dazed and confused around 1 in the morning. Later, I had finally found a comfortable position which is nearly impossible and was into a really good conversation when something else was thrown into the equation… The bus slammed on the brakes, a horn sounded, and we were slammed into from behind. I don’t know what I was thinking… maybe “what else?” After almost experiencing an Indian riot over the wreck, sort of cleaning up broken glass, making sure everyone was ok, and then retrieving our oversized packs that had been strewn over the busy interstate, we were on our way again-broken bus and all.
We were assured that we would be to the border “soon” where we would be able to board a new bus there for the remainder of our journey. So… after two… yes two full days of bus time (an estimated 52 hours), we finally reached the boarder that we were sure did not exist. It was a bit cold that morning, but we dragged our sick, dirty, whiplashed, exhausted selves off of that bus to cross the India/Nepal boarder. The promise of a new bus did not turn out to be such green pastures though. It wasn’t a great bus… older with no A/C… The lame part was though that he did not take us where we paid him to, but to a bus park where he would not unload our packs without more money.
Luckily… our contact in Nepal came to the rescue. We got our packs and made it to a rest house in the mountains. It was beautiful there, and there were showers and breakfast and best of all…. A bed, praise the Lord.
Again… nothing is ever over on the race, which means… my team and I still had to go to our ministry sight. After two days at this awesome place, we said goodbye and made our way to a street corner where we were told that we would catch our “luxury bus.” All of us had visions of a sweet sleeper bus with air con and room service… hilarious. Of course, we were being stared at and pictures were being taken of us as we stood with our packs… soon we drew a crowd and began to attempt to entertain them… we ended up making 26 Nepalese rupees… roughly 35 cents… it was fun anyway.
Our bus arrived… and let me just say it did not match the visions in our heads… so after another 13ish hours on that and 2 hours on a van after that… we have made it far back into the mountains of Nepal at Bethany church to do ministry. It’s hard to explain how hard this week was, but all in all, God sees us through every time and gives us what we need… if you want more details (believe me this could be a short novel) hit me up… other than that, I’ve got nothing’ else…
