So, I haven’t been a very good blogger the first five months of my race. Maybe that means I don’t really like to write or maybe I’m not very good at writing? Excuses aside, I LOVE taking photos. So moving into India, this is how you’re going to know what I’m up to.
India is another world.
We flew into Hyderabad and got there about 2am. Walked through immigration, got our 56 bags from baggage claim, found our contact, said goodbye to Jillian’s team who headed to Delhi, went to ATMs and then all loaded into two buses. Then we found out that we wouldn’t have any food until lunchtime the next day so rushed to McDonald’s grabbed some food and water bottles (you can’t drink the water here) and we were finally on our way.
This is one of millions of trash piles in India. There are also ton of street dogs. While we waited for our bus, we got to enjoy the wonderful smells of India, while watching this dog, and a rat go back and forth to its nest with trash.
We drove an hour to a Catholic convent, finally got there at 4:30am, and stayed the night there. It was pretty eventful – While we were napping, I heard all of these nuns yelling in Hindi. So after a few minutes I turned to Kelsey and was like – “What is going on?” and got up and peeked my head out of the door. Not to worry… An electrical fire had started. Kelsey played the hero and ran out to figure out what was going on while I grabbed my daypack, along with my camera and iPad and booked out the door. Obviously more important than my own life. When I found out the fire was 100% containable, I was a little embarrassed about how I grabbed my bag so frantically!
When I left China, I thought I would never see squatty potties again but to my delight, India has squatty potties too. It’s also normal to wipe with your left hand. I WILL NOT be practicing this tradition.
We had an amazing time of worship, followed by dinner and then loaded up the car to go to Ongole, India. In China they drive crazy, in the Philippines they drive crazy – I don’t even know how to describe the way Indian’s drive – There are no lanes, no speed limits, no one ways, no pedestrian crossing laws and they use their horns a lot. We tapped a person who was walking with our car on the way to the bus stop just to tell them to get out of the way.
Our bus came and all the women from Team The Dry Bones and Kelsey and me got on and then…. the bus left without Jo and Jon (and our bags). We drove for five minutes and still had no sight of them. We still didn’t have SIM cards to call them with our phones and had no way to contact them. We started to worry a little bit when out of nowhere we look outside and there they were.
Nine hours and a really bumpy bus ride late, we made it to Ongole. Supposedly we we’re at a bus stop but in NO way would it be considered a bus stop in U.S. standards. To the right, cows were eating out of trash and to the left, a pack of Indian men were staring at us. Did we get off at the right bus stop?
After thirty minutes of waiting, wondering, and holding my pee in, this random guy shows up and introduces himself in broken English. We take took tooks to the ministry site.
There’s day one and a half…
P.S. I still need $1,400 by the end of February to continue on the World Race. If you would like to support me, click on the “Support Me” tab. Thanks!
