Travel days have been known to be stressful. Imagine 30+
people traveling together from one country to another to another, all while
staying organized and loving towards each other and functioning on little to no
sleep. It’s fun…right?? No.
Or so we thought. Compared to our travel day at the
beginning of this month, 24 hour travel days are simple and heavenly!
We began our travel day at 10 am one morning. The first
group left to head to the airport and catch their flight from Hyderabad to Delhi,
India. This was the easy part of the travel day! They arrived to the airport
prepared for the next two groups to arrive within 22 hours of the start of
their own day.
I was in the second group as we headed to the airport. As
soon as we arrived, we were told that our bus couldn’t’ take us any farther and
that we’d have to catch the airport shuttle. So we heave-hoed all of our packs
from one bus to the next (thank God for our men!!!) and hopped on the shuttle.
We got into the airport, through check-in and security and took a few minutes
for a quick bite to eat. This ended up being the most amazing meal that we’d
get for the next 60 hours! Our new team stopped at a Pizza Hut and ordered
personal pan pizzas with garlic bread. Can you say YUM!?!
So we boarded the plane and headed off for a 2 hour flight.
When we arrived in Delhi, the first group of our squad met us and took us over
to a secluded part of baggage claim where they’d camped out. At this point,
they’d been there for around 8 hours. They’d unpacked their sleeping pads,
sleeping bags and pillows. Before we knew it, there were 20 sleeping pads lying
in the middle of the floor near baggage claim. The staff refused to let us out
of the airport and back in, so we were without food or drinks. Massive dinosaur
mosquitoes swarmed where we were, but we’ve all gotten quite used to crazy
situations, so we all got comfortable and ended up falling asleep.
All the while, airport security would come over every 20
minutes and check on us. They never once said anything to us about camping in
the airport, so we stayed despite their stares and radio conversations. At one
point, they sent in a drug sniffing dog and went throughout our group sniffing
out our bags. Once again, no words were shared. They went along with their
business of checking out 20 suspicious looking 20 year olds and we slept.
At 6, we all awoke and prepared for our last group’s
arrival. We got cleaned up in the bathroom of baggage claim, finally walked
outside and found some quick food. Our bus arrived that would take us from
Delhi to Kathmandu, Nepal and we began to load our stuff. When we had all
boarded, we found out that the estimated time of travel that the travel agency
had given us, 15 hours, turned into 30+ hours. Great!
So we set off. I grabbed a good 450 page book and began
reading. We stopped at McDonald’s for lunch (amazing!!) but because we didn’t
expect to still be in India, we were short on Indian cash and had to put all
our personal and team money together to afford lunch.
We headed off, once again. We were able to stop along the
side of the road and see the Taj Mahal! Beautiful from 2 miles away, I must
say!
Then we got back on the bus, again, and began to drive,
again. Later that night, around 9, we stopped in this random side of the road
restaurant with Hindu god paintings all along the walls. We ordered some decent
food and loaded back on the bus for a night of driving. This is where the fun
started…if we weren’t having fun already…
Around 11 pm, our bus came to a quick halt for a truck that
had backed out into the highway…not unusual in foreign countries. We were
stopped for a good 30 seconds and ready to continue when what felt like a bomb
hit us. It ended up being a semi truck that had plowed into the back of us
going full steam ahead. The back window of the bus shattered and it sent glass
into the interior of the bus. One of our girls who’d been sleeping on the packs
in the back seat went flying forward. It could have been much worse.
The bus driver found a way to rig the back of the bus closed
and secured the rest of the bags in the lower compartment from falling out.
And we drove on.
No glass window in the back of the bus…on our 15th
hour of travel…exhausted and sleep deprived…and we had only begun!
At some point that night, I finished my 450 page book and
had started the next book. I got a little bit of sleep huddled in between 2
seats, with a travel pillow and an achy neck from being rear ended by a semi
truck…yay!
I woke up the next morning at some point as we continued to
drive. The driver was still driving and hadn’t really taken any breaks. We
drove on, never-ending, until we saw a sign for the border of Nepal in 5 km.
What should have taken 5 minutes to get to took over 5 hours. I’m not sure what
happened to the border, but we arrived at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere
around 3 pm and got some food, boarded the bus again, and drove on.
We finally arrived in Nepal, boarded a new, slightly nasty,
bus and drove on. They told us we’d arrive in Kathmandu around 4 or 5 the next
morning. That night was a blur for me. I just remember freezing and being so
sleep deprived that despite the discomfort and the pain in my body, I slept
super hard.
When we arrived in Kathmandu, our bus drivers decided that
they didn’t feel like taking us to our hostel. They argued with us and our
contact for a good 45 minutes before deciding to take us straight to the bus
park so that we could figure out what to do from there. Lovely!
We pulled into the bus park, 10 km past where we were supposed
to be dropped off, and argued with the driver for awhile. He wanted more money
to release our bags to us. He held them hostage for about an hour until we got
the bus company on the phone. We unloaded our bags and climbed onto the next
bus to take us to our hostel.
When we arrived 45 minutes later, I don’t remember much
besides crashing on my bed for hours with complete exhaustion. Over 67 hours
from the time when we began our travel day, we made it to Nepal. Crazy!
I don’t think I’ll ever complain about another travel day
from here on out. I can’t imagine that the next 2 months will hold travel days
worse than this one, but at this point, I’m open for anything. But, my hope is
that this was the hardest we’ll see on the trip! Only 3 more to go on this race…now
that’s crazy!
