The Journey from Lumbini to Varanasi: The Most Frightening Travel Day of My Life:

Varanasi, India

November 29, 2012

Altitude: 252'

There was a growing pit in my stomach about the journey from Lumbini to Varanasi.  It was only a distance of about 250 miles but there is where the similarities would end.  It would involve crossing the Indian border, getting to the first city, finding a train or bus to Varanasi then from the station to my hotel.  In most countries, this would be straight forward.  But in India...well...this could take on a life of its own.

But I also knew that the owner of the guesthouse would have the answer, and he did.

"I have a car and driver and he’ll bring you to the border. He’ll wait for you and then transfer you to your Indian driver. The journey should take about eight hours," he said.  At $120.00 it was far more than local transport would cost, but it would, I assumed, be a whole lot easier.

Sometimes things just seem to be the right thing to do.

We left Lumbini at 6:00 am.  Fog still covered the flat Terai. By the time we got to the border the sun was rising--an orange wafer gorgeously muted by polluted air. That would be my good bye to Nepal and hello to India.

I passed customs without a hitch and the driver met me on the other side, introduced me to my new driver.  Six hours I was told.  Why would I not believe him.

Initially, I was encouraged.  Roads seemed better.  At least they were two lanes which was a step up from Nepal. And it was still early.  But by the time we got to the first city of size, Gorkaphur, traffic had picked up.  We weren't speeding by any means as it was impossible to move quickly.  No one had respect for rules of the road.  Huge trucks and busses careened past us, sometime tilting as they did.  I was sitting in the backseat and totally unable to relax, totally unable to read, totally unable to do anything but watch.

The driver spoke English the way I speak French--in one word sentences.  He'd been driving since 1990, so I held on to two things--he was still driving and he'd gotten this far without dying. I also knew that he knew the rules of the road far better than I.

I also knew that God was three steps ahead.  I'd asked him to do that before we left Lumbini.  When in doubt, trust.

I was terrified.  And hungry.  I'd only brought two bottles of Coke with me and four packages of cookies.  I think I also smuggled in three tangerines.  

Whenever the driver would stop we'd open all the windows.  I felt way too vulnerable and never stepped more than a few feet from the door.  Once he bought me a liter of water.  Flies landed all over the interior of the car.  All around me was filth, squalor, noise and chaos.  I hated to think where those flies had been.

Six hours!  Six hours indeed!

A long way in India feels a lot longer than anywhere else.  After passing two elephants, numerous monkeys, horses, donkeys, sheep, goats--goats on the side of the road, goats in herds, bloodied dead goats in the road, goats recently killed and hanging by their feet at a market--dogs, and cows--cows darting across the road, cows eating from piles of garbage, cows with tikka markings on their skin--and chickens on the road, chickens in yards, chickens for sale in bamboo cages; after passing thousands of homes made from mud or thatch; after passing homes with large piles of dried cow dung drying in the heat; after passing thousands of children who should have been in school but weren't; after passing women--a million women--Hindu women in colorful saris and Muslim women dressed in full black burkas, women carrying bundles on their heads and women carrying long stalks of sugar cane; after passing 200 gaudily decorated cars indicating a wedding party; after passing five trucks/cars/SUV's/taxis all heading to the Ganges carrying saffron wrapped dead bodies on their roofs for cremation; after passing a thousand Hindu temples/shrines/statues and five hundred mosques; after passing a huge Hindu festival on the banks of a river; after passing 5,000,000 bicycles, 2,000,000 motorcycles, teams of oxen pulling loads of wheat, 1,000,000 rickshaws pedaled by stick-thin drivers who arched and strained against the pedals; after passing 1,000,000 ancient, gaudily decorated buses/trucks all going too fast; after averting twenty near-miss head-on collisions; after listening to piercing Indian music hour after hour; after listening to the almost constant beep of horns--from my driver and from everyone else; after freaking out in the back seat for hours; after screaming about twenty times; after eating nothing for 14 hours but two bottles of Coke, 40 cookies, three tangerines and a liter of water; after trying every relaxation technique I knew; after never seeing another foreigner from the time I left the border, after all this..after all this and after far more...we finally arrived at the outskirts of Varanasi.  

There is a traffic jam.  But it's not like any traffic jam I've ever seen.  We move 100 yards every thirty minutes.  At one point, we are sitting on the tracks of a train and I can see a train coming.  I panic and leave the car, but there is no place to go.  The driver shouts me back in.  Police are forcing cars ahead and we clear the tracks and are safely behind the thing that lowers when a train passes.

It was hard to see any mysticism in modern India.

The driver is as frazzled as I am, but for different reasons. He turns to me and says, "God."

"God," Yes, God.  Despite the pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses and all their incarnations, there is still...God.

I tell him "Yes, God.  He is with us.  You and me."  I tell him I have been praying all day and that I will pray for him as he returns home.

God.  We are on the same page.  All barriers drop.

All this time I'm thinking the driver is just going to abandon me, make me get out and fend for myself. He apologizes.  "I am sorry, Sir.  India hard.  I am sorry, Sir."  I tell him it's not his fault but I'm insistent that we get to the hotel.  He has the directions. We finally get through this--almost two hours to go a half mile--and we make a left and head into clear streets.  I've been on the verge of multiple panic attack.  He is always asking directions and we ultimately get to a place where the police tell him he can go no further.  I get out thinking this is the end of the road.  He leaves.  The cop tells me to sit.  I have no idea why.  I'm in a sea of people.  Ten minutes later the driver comes back.  I'd given him 500 rupees to park the car.  The two of us--big me, my big suitcase, my day pack and him--get into a rickshaw, but that comes to end and we are on foot again.  Every twenty yards he asks someone the direction of Hotel Alka.

Now I'm actually shaking with fear.  I'm beyond a bundle of nerves and I'm really really close to crying, but not yet. It's been as bad all day, but it's bound to get better.  But through all this my driver never leaves me.  We finally weave our way into a maze of narrow, twisty alleyways--the Old City of Varanasi.

And then...and then...the hotel.  I enter.

"Mr. Daniel?  We have been waiting for you."

All I want to do is eat and drink something, something other than cookies and Coke.  I give the driver a 50% tip and ask reception to ask him if he's happy.  They do.  "Oh yes, Sir.  He is very happy." I also ask them to tell him he's a good man.

We shake hand and I'm "home." Home at least in this corner of India.

They bring me to a table on the roof top restaurant that overlooks the Ganges.  There's a festival going on, but I hardly notice.  I'm still so keyed up that I just can't focus beyond the fact that I'm here and safe.

I notice that my neighbors have a Nepal guidebook and that breaks the ice.  Once I learn they're from Spain I switch to Spanish, but I'm so frazzled that it's useless.  I just can't do it.

By the time, I finish dinner I'm better.  Less jittery.  I check into the room, take a shower.  I email Steve and tell him it's been the most harrowing travel day of my life.  "Ha, Ha," he writes back. "Steve in the Third World."

"No," I tell him.  It's more than that and the only way to communicate it is through Skype.  "I was terrified and alone and frightened all day.  The idea that I'd be robbed, or abandoned or killed never left me.”

You would think I'd have fallen right to sleep, but that wasn't possible.  I was so keyed-up that it took .50 mg of Xanax to quiet me down.

The next morning, I awake far too early.  Echoes reverberate all through the hotel.  I'm hungry and want some caffeine, so I walk out onto the street.  It's not yet 7:00 am.  The street is teeming with early morning devotees near a Hindu temple.  I'm completely disoriented.  Women are on the ground praying and chanting over intricate mandalas they've made.  They must appease the gods and the right number of things and the right dimensions all must be in order.  The mandalas are colorful, with marigolds and different colored powders and lit butter lamps.  Cows are all over the place and piles of cow dung are everywhere. Women are making offerings to the cows, touching their tails. Shiva. Vishnu.  Who knows. Men are walking back from the river dripping water.  This is the most holy spot for Hindus.

I dodge multiple piles of poo--some piles decorated with marigolds--and finally get to the restaurant. For two hours I sit, organizing the six pages of notes I'd taken the day before, then I write.  It's the only thing that works when I've overwhelmed.  Half way through this time I leave to use the bathroom.  I don't know what happens, or why, but the moment I close the door I start to cry.  I'm not a crier by nature, but this one I can't stop.  I just stand in the room and have a total emotional breakdown.  

What is going on? I think.  This is so unlike me.  But it doesn’t take long to figure it out.

I think it’s taken this amount of time for me to comprehend what happened the day before.  That and the writing.  It was the only way to put some catharsis to the day.  And the crying wrapped it up.

I pull myself together, wrap this piece of writing up and leave.  My mother used to say, "This too shall pass."  And I knew it would.  But I make a deep promise to myself. I will never, never, absolutely never, hire a car and driver in a country like this again.  

It was still early and I was in Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges and, while I wanted to call Qatar Airways to get me home, I said NO. You are here and you will persevere.

I'd been told Varanasi would hold no prisoners.

I was about to find out.