So here we are, in Nepal-our second month on the World Race,
and I’m praising God that we actually made it here at all! I knew coming into the Race we would
have some pretty crazy travel days, but nothing can prepare you for the unexpected
mishaps along the way. Here is
what last week looked like for us:
Monday (1/31)
We left the orphanage around 8:45pm to take a bus from
Vijayawada back to Hyderabad to meet up with two other teams. The bus was supposed to arrive at
9:30pm, but as we quickly realized, the bus was running on “India time”, which
means it could show up anytime between 9:30 and midnight. The bus finally arrived around 10:15
and traveled through the night to Hyderabad. We arrived at the bus stop around 6:30am, making our first
travel day a total of 7 hours, 45 minutes.
Tuesday (2/1)
At this point, four of seven teams on T-Squad were together
in Hyderabad. Our flight to Dehli
wasn’t until 6am the next day, so we spent all day Tuesday touring Hyderabad
and relaxing at the School of Worship, the same place we stayed on our last day
of launch at the beginning of the month.
We ended up renting a bus to take us around so we could make the most of
the time we had. We ate lunch at
Hard Rock Café-yes, there is a Hard Rock in India, and yes, it’s just like one
in the States, and yes it was amazing!!
Then we spent some time in a mall that also looked very similar to one
back home-definitely eased some of the homesickness. As fun as the day was, we still had many long travel days
ahead! Tuesday night at 10pm we
left the School of Worship and headed for the airport. When we arrived, we discovered that we
would not be able to check in until two hours before our flight, so we set up
camp in the middle of the breezeway at the entrance of the airport. Many of my teammates had no trouble
falling asleep on the floor amongst the mound of backpacks and pushcarts,
however I just couldn’t, so I found some company and a double cappuccino and
spent the next five hours entertaining myself (if you know me well, you know
that isn’t very hard for me to do!). 
Wednesday (2/2)
When 4am finally arrived, we packed up our stuff and headed
for the check in counter. The
weight limit for luggage was 45lbs, which many of us were over (including me)
so we had to pull out stuff and carry it along for the ride. Luckily my tent weighed just enough to
bring me under the limit, so I didn’t have to carry too much. For the most part, our first foreign
airport experience went rather smoothly.
Our flight took off at 6am and landed in Dehli around 8am. Our train from Dehli to the boarder of
India wasn’t until 9pm, so each team decided to rent a room at a cheap hotel
near the city to rest and leave our bags for the day. It was definitely a good idea! Some people decided to stay back and rest, but not me. I promised myself before the race that
if I had a choice between sleep and seeing the world, I would choose the world,
thus off I went! Somehow we always
manage to sniff out the food that most closely resembles home; today it
happened to be Pizza Hut. It
wasn’t quite as good as pizza in the states, but it was a close second. Following lunch, our group spent the
day riding on a ridiculously packed subway, shopping in an underground market,
and touring a place called the Red Fort.
I wish I could tell you more about the Red Fort…however, just like on
field trips when I was a kid; I was more focused on the shapes and colors than
the actual signs with words on them.
Seemed pretty cool though!
We actually didn’t get to stay there very long because we were running
late. All teams were to meet
back at the hotel by 6pm so we could make it to the train station by 7. At first, I thought it was a little
crazy getting to the station two hours early, but now I am thanking God we
did! Around 8pm we realized that
we were at the wrong train station and had to take taxis 45 minutes across
town, to make our train by 9. I
wish I had a picture of our taxi!
We crammed all six of us into a five-seat taxi (that’s not including the
driver), plus six internal frame backpacks, 6 book bags, a guitar and a
harp. Needless to say I was
praying the entire way for us to make it on time in one piece and without me throwing
up all over my teammates. I have
no idea how we made it, but we all were able to jump onto the train with about
fifteen seconds left. Looking
back, it was evident that God’s hand was all over it. Not only did all of our taxis make it to the station within
one minute of each other, but also the luggage scan broke down as some of our
bags were going through. The
remaining members of our team were allowed to walk/run through without being
scanned. If that had not of
happened, about half of our team would not have made it onto the train. As I said…God’s Hand.
After about a half hour, we were finally able to calm down
and get settled into our bunks.
Luckily, each of us had our own beds for the night, however most of us
had to sleep with our backpacks and book bags also, which was pretty
challenging. I managed to figure
it out and slept for at least eight to ten hours. This was my first real train experience-like, choo choo
train-the metros and subways don’t really count. This was a straight up railroad, jump from car to car, and
squeeze through the isles kind of train.
I found it to be quite exciting!
Thursday (2/3)
We arrived to Gorakhpur, India about 11am, making our total
train experience about 14 hours.
Luckily, this was the train’s last stop so we didn’t have to rush to
jump off the train. We were
nervous because many of the stops had been as short as one to two minutes, but
it worked out perfectly. Once the
team was able to get off and get situated, we made our way to the front of the
train station where a private bus was supposed to pick us up to take us across
the boarder to Nepal. It wasn’t
there. So we waited about a half
hour or so while our awesome logistics team got on the phone to find our
bus. Eventually it arrived, and we
headed off for the boarder. The
bus was actually pretty awesome; it was a double-decker with bunks on top. The ride wasn’t so smooth, but it was
nice to have an entire bus to ourselves and not have to worry about our bags or
multiple bus stops along the way.
About two hours in we stopped at this cute little Indian restaurant to
grab some lunch. There were
monkeys! I had been waiting all
month to see monkeys in India, and I finally got to see some, but they were
angry monkeys. One almost jumped
down from his tree because we got too close. I recorded it, so it will definitely be in my next
video. Oh, and the food was good
too.
It took approximately four hours to get to the boarder of
India, where we had to go through customs. Luckily, they didn’t make us all get off the bus-that would
have taken forever! The logistics
team collected our passports and brought us all the information we needed to
fill out. The whole process only
took about an hour, getting us back on the road around five-thirty, six
o’clock. The total bus ride
including all of our stops was sixteen hours.
Friday (2/4)
We arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal at 3am, but our bus driver
could not find our hotel. Hollis
(our squad leader) had to ask a native on the street that wanted us to pay him
to take us there. Eventually we
gave in and agreed to pay him 300 rupees (about $4) to drive his taxi and let
us follow him. Apparently the bus
couldn’t enter the city because of low electric wires that run through the
streets, so we had to park and walk with our packs about five blocks to the
hotel. When we arrived, Noe (our
other squad leader) was waiting for us with keys in hand. All the teams went up into their rooms,
except for our team, which was placed in a neighboring hotel. When we went to enter, the door was
locked; everyone was in bed.
Eventually, someone answered the phone and let us in. We finally got into a very comfy bed
around 4-4:30am. And the sleep was
glorious!!
Traveling Total:
3 days, 7 hours
Total Time in
Transport: apprx 40 hours
Was unable to load pictures due to poor internet, hopefully will have pictures up on this post by the end of the month!
