Going into month 9, The Q is pretty much ready for
anything travel day and new countries can hand us. Our trek from Hyderabad,
India to Kathmandu, Nepal was looking to be one of our longest travel days yet:
a flight and a bus ride, including crossing the border on foot with our packs.
Nothing new for these Racers. We had expectations. We should have known better.
We had to fly to Delhi in three separate groups, with
several hours between each flight. The first group arrived in Delhi around 3pm
on April 28th. The next group would arrive at 10pm, and the third at 8am the
next morning. That left the first group with a 19-hour wait in Delhi.
So we did what any practical Racer would do: we made
friends with the security guards so we could sneak in and out to get food, and
rolled out our bed mats in a lonely corner of the domestic arrivals terminal.
Travelers arriving in Delhi all day on Friday were welcomed by baggage kiosks, uniformed
guards, and 27 white people making the tile floor into a campground.
Friday morning, a big orange bus pulled up outside the
terminal, and we piled everything inside. Ryan came in from talking with the
driver, and had that smile on his face that we’ve seen so many times before:
the one that says, “You guys are going to be thrilled about
this…”
He picked up the mic: “So… remember how this bus
ride is supposed to be 12 -15 hours? It might be a bit longer than that…”
And, of course, we just laughed.
Twelve hours later, we weren’t even halfway there. We
were in the dark middle of nowhere, northern India. The bus’s squeaky-toy horn
and sharp lurch forward jolted us from our sleep. Through the front window, we
saw that we had narrowly missed a truck backing onto the highway. We barely had
time to breathe, “Praise the Lord!” when a second violent jerk threw
us forward in our seats.
A colorfully decorated, fully-loaded semi truck
rear-ended us at full speed.
The back window of the bus shattered, sending tiny
shards of glass all over the pile of bags in the back 2 rows. The luggage
compartment under the bus broke open; several bags had to be retrieved from the
middle of the road.
A few of guys climbed out with the driver, confirming
that everyone was ok. The whole situation was handled the way Indians handle
every traffic-related conflict: uninvolved people involving themselves in lots
of yelling. We really couldn’t help but laugh. When the yelling stopped, the
busted luggage door was tied down, the back curtains were taped shut, and we
just kept driving.
The next morning, we still had no clue how far we were
from Nepal. But we ate and slept and kept watching movies, hoping to see the
border soon. We finally reached Sonauli to cross into Belahiya at about 5pm,
filled out all the forms, and transferred our bags to a new, smaller bus. One
contact had told us that Kathmandu was 2 hours from the border. Another friend
had said 5 or 6 hours. A sign on the map at the border told us more accurately:
“9 hours driving time” was ahead of us. When Samantha pointed out
that detail, we just laughed again.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the bus stopped
again. Traffic was backed up for miles on a single-lane mountain road. Cold air
rushed in through the windows; the sound of a waterfall echoed up the steep
cliff. The stars were bright enough to show jagged silhouettes of mountains–we
are definitely in Nepal. I climbed the rickety ladder on the side of the bus
with Amy H. and Tiffany, just to sit in the cold air. Honking and sirens
drowned out the waterfall, and clouds soon covered up the stars. We never did
find out why we stopped. We laid on the bags and laughed.
The sun had just started to rise when we woke up in a
bus park in Kathmandu. The sense of “Oh great, we’re here!” was only
stifled by the fact that we should have been at the door of our guest house…
still 45 minutes from the bus park. Ryan had a hilariously heated argument with
the driver, who was insisting on being paid more money before he would unlock
our bags from the top of the bus. That was actually a pretty serious issue: we
had, in agreement that they would take us door-to-door, already paid the bus
company in full. After 2 days of traveling, we were still not where we needed
to be. But when the driver shot back at Ryan, “That’s not lying, it’s like
lying,” well, we laughed.
Our new friend Bhuvan came to the rescue. He’s our main
ministry contact here in Nepal, and runs the guesthouse we’d be staying at for
that night. It was about 5:30am (and Ryan was still arguing with the driver)
when Bhuvan stepped up to the bus full of deliriously tired Racers with a loud,
enthusiastic, “Welcome to Nepal!” That, more than anything else, made
us laugh until we cried. But it was what we needed. And PRAISE THE LORD,
written on the side of Bhuvan’s bus were the words “A House of Rest.”
So let’s recap this ordeal: 19 hours on the tile floor
at New Delhi International, 45 hours of a roller-coaster-esque bus ride, grimy
squatty potties at truck stops dedicated to various Hindu gods, chicken fried
rice for every meal, a major traffic accident, unexplained stops on precarious
mountain roads, utter uncertainty at every turn of the road, all ending at a
4-story guesthouse that offered us a cold shower and a damp twin bed to share
with a friend.
And I’m pretty sure we loved every minute of it.
If the World Race teaches you anything, it’s that you
don’t have control over most things. I imagine that, 8 months ago, most of The
Q would never have laughed off the drastic and constant change in plans that
defined our travel to Nepal over the past few days. But really, what choice do
we have? As Amber said earlier today, “You have to have a sense of
humor. Seriously.”
Whether I sit on the bus boiling in frustration or
laughing at how ridiculous the whole situation has become, I’m still sitting on
the bus. Throughout this year, we can’t really control where we are going, how
we are getting there, or what will happen to us along the way. Twelve hours
will turn into 45, toilet paper will run out, overstuffed packs will get
scattered across a dusty Indian highway, and there’s honestly nothing you can
do about it. But we can control whether it’s fun or not. So we just laugh.
-Katie
