Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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Travel Days rock. Ok, so I might be exaggerating a bit. But
they are always an adventure and never go exactly as planned that is why I love
them. Travel from India to Nepal might
seem like a simple task, but it wouldn’t be “the Q” without some drama. Let me
tell you about it…

THURSDAY APRIL 28, 2011

The squad departs to the airport in three different shifts
because we couldn’t all get on one flight.

10:00 am        The first group departs.

5:00 pm           My
group departs

8:00 pm          Fly from Hyderabad,
India to Delhi, India

10:00 pm        Arrive
in Delhi where
we are not allowed to leave until morning when our bus comes to pick us up and
there is no food in sight.

11:00 pm         Bethany and I decide we are thirsty and
attempt to get water out of the water machine. It won’t take our currency. No
booths can give us change. We approach a random man who generously gives us 40
Indian rupees. We get water and laugh a lot.

Midnight         Whip out our sleeping pads and
blankets. Make ourselves a home in the corner of the airport to sleep for the
night. A few chats with security and we fall asleep. Eventually we even get a
few strangers to join our sleeping area and they even shut off the lights in
our area. Our first night of sleep with air conditioning in forever.

FRIDAY APRIL
29, 2011

8:00 am           The last group of people arrive in Delhi and we head outside
to finally get some food

8:30 am           Board our bright orange bus to start
our 13 hour trek to Nepal

8:45 am           Ryan makes the announcement that we
were told wrong and that it won’t actually be a 13 hour bus ride to Nepal, but
something more like 20 hours. Off we go!

1:47 pm           Stop at McDonalds to eat in Agra, India.
Scrounge around for cash to pay for it.

2:30 pm           Stop and take pictures of the Taj
Mahal!

8:22 pm           Stop at some shady place on the side
of the road to get dinner. Prayed over the food that nobody would get sick.

11:00 pm         Get in an accident. Lose the back of our bus and find our bags strewn
along the road. Thankfully no one is hurt minus minor cuts and some
whiplash. Sit there forever while Indian men fight about whose fault it
was.
(the rest I copied from my squad leader, Tricia’s blog)
12 p.m.: Bungee tie the back on to the bus and clear out the broken back window and take off.
5 a.m.: Stop at a bus station. Sit there for an hour. Think we’re at the border. Use their disgusting bathrooms. Start driving.
7 a.m.: Still driving. Stop on the side of the road. Driver takes a nap for an hour
10 a.m.: Pee break. Still not at the border.
2 p.m.: Pee break. Lunch. Still not at the border.
5 p.m.: Finally at the border.
7 p.m. Leave the border. Drive for 5 minutes.

7:05 p.m.: Pee break. Stop to feed the masses. 
8:00 p.m.: Finally start diving in Nepal. Through ridiculous mountains at a ridiculous speed.
12:00 a.m.: Pee break. Even more shady than the last restaurant.
1:00 a.m.: Stop on the side of the mountain because there is a traffic jam. What?!
2:00 a.m.: Start driving again.
5:00a.m. Finally arrive in Kathmandu. Bus doesn’t take us to where
we need to go. We fight with the driver. He drops us off in a dark
parking lot. 6:30 a.m.: A pastor finally comes and picks us up and we
transfer all our huge bags and all tired, hungry, dirty people to a new
bus.
7:15 a.m.: Arrive to our hostel and fall into beds. I think we shared 15 beds for 34 of us.
7:30 a.m.: Awoken for breakfast.

 

All day is spent on the bus. Multiple stops are made along
the way for us to pee on the side of the road. Girls huddled together in the
bushes to relieve ourselves. Random stops along the way where we literally just
sit there. Computer batteries and i-pods have all died. No entertainment left
so I sleep most of the way in the aisle of the bus.
 
One night sleeping in the airport and two nights on a bus. 44 hours total. Bring on travel days!