Ladakh Trip: Day Two. Delhi

The delhi stopover begins with Sharmaji and his Tempo. We've asked for a large-ish car with a roof rack to pick us up from the station; the organizer, with considerably more foresight and experience in people who rashly order undersized cars and carry oversized luggage, has sent a 20-person tempo with luggage space that could have been classified as a studio apartment in Mumbai.

Sharmaji's Tempo has been to more places in India than SBI or the Indian Railways. He rattles off a litany, mantra, chant, list of places that it's traveled in India that sounded like a random reading of the Frank School Atlas for Class X index. It lasts close to ten minutes, with no pauses, repetitions, or break for thought.

Stay at the Raunak International in Karol Bagh, in an area comprised exclusively of hotels in various grades of shadiness. The rooms are electric blue, with disturbingly gold and faded gilt fittings and accouterments, dim lighting, and consist exclusively of a giant bed with satiny covers. Walk into the room and you can sense the history of a million illicit encounters emanate from the air. The lobby doesn't help; it's crammed full of extremely panicked-looking teenage girls. No clue offered on who they are or why they're there.

The street of hotels has electric poles that appear to be supplying half of Karol Bagh, individually; the snarl of stolen-electricity wires are a black hole, preventing any light from escaping at all. That's okay though; the the stolen current lights up the street through a million neon signs, bulbs, decorative lights, and insectkiller UV brighter than the noonday sun.

Lunch at Roshan di Kulfi, an eatery with a giant metal sculpture of a semi-naked woman in DDLJ pose with metal dupatta flying in the breeze, suspended on it's facade. Couldn't quite figure out it's significance to kulfis.

In the evening, we pack up and pile into the tempo again, heading for Himachal Bhavan and the bus pickup point.

The Neo-Kalapaani Theory: As proposed by Sharmaji. "A hundred years ago, The brits used to deport criminals to remote islands. Today, they are the antisocials who've been chucked out of their country, and have washed up in India to pass the rest of their lives in a dope daze in the hills." This is accompanied by a virulent sneer at a group of foreigners waiting patiently on the kerb for their Manali bus.

Our co-passengers are the standard set you'll find on any long-distance journey.

1 bong couple, consisting of a harassed-looking wife and an even more harassed-looking husband being bossed around.

2 South Indian college girls, solemn and serious.

Three newly married couples, probably Punju, surrounded by a gaggle of overweight female relatives and much jewelery, shedding copious tears.

An elderly couple, sitting rigidly in seats 30 minutes before the start.

A group of guys, apparently already quite alcoholically happy, spewing violent anti-boss abuse and raucous laughter.

An elderly gent frantically selling neckpillows.

A young guy with a giant backpack and shorts, being earnestly wished goodbye by full family.

Two bored, indolent youths strolling around selling bisleri and making a killing.

A driver who looks exactly like Kabir Bedi doing a round up and down the aisle, glowering ferociously at everyone and telling them to keep the AC blowers free (Teri maa ki, or I'll kill you all and chop you up and feed you to my kutte!!)

The bus leaves exactly at 6:30, on the dot. Very impressive.

One of the things that I love about the scenery from a bus - the high-tension electric-supply pylons. I always associate them with travel, their having been a part of the scenery since I remember traveling. The eye jumps from one to the other along the wires, to the next, the next, the next, and suddenly you're lost in the distance, and the entire horizon stretches out before you... they're like the guardians of journeys. Always standing rigidly at attention, unmoving, yet everywhere - get on a cable, and you could leap across the world.

Dinner is at a typical roadside dhaba - inevitably, the Sher-e-Punjab Dhaba - a fairly popular one, filled with 5-6 buses and a vast gang of travelers. The young man we'd seen earlier turns out to be a very interesting person. His name is Siddharth, ex-Citibank, and he's going to walk from Manali to Leh. Alone. He's planned to do it in around 28 days. It's a harsh, punishing terrain, empty, deserted, lonely, with food and rest stops spaced far apart. People doing this on motorized transport find it a challenge; I can't even begin to think of doing this on foot.

Hats off to you, man - and all the best!

Weird dreams, brought on by the excitement of the trip, change in weather and food, and maybe a side effect of diamox - I'm being followed around by a giant irridiscent black beetle, nearly 5 feet long, and a crying bulldog made out of scrambled eggs. No idea what it means.

In the middle of the night we make another rest halt - I don't when it is, but it's a brightly lit, lonely dhaba-hotel in the middle of a vast black cold silence - where we charge up on tea, and on the spur of the moment, also finish off the next morning's biz in an extremely gross dhaba loo. N and A prefer the fields, beside the sign that says that open air defecation is now a punishable offence.

This is just as well; because the next morning brings an unanticipated, sudden adventure.

Next: Kullu, Manali and Rohtang

Delhi to Haridwar: A little planning and a lot of fate

Just a quick breeze-thru; it was so friggin' hot! I can't believe this is Himalayan foothills! I was nearly broiled alive!

Anyway... started of interestingly enough, like a K-Jo movie, with three parallel stories.

Afternoon - 2 PM
Me & R reached Dum Dum airport after a blazing high-speed drive down CIT road (or is it VIP road?) in a Sumo. You cannot begin to imagine, unless you've spent any time in Dubai, what driving to the Cal airport is like now. Kilometers upon kilometers of smooth, empty, wide 6-lane highway and wilderness on all sides. no traffic, no pedestrians, just blazing sun and the occasional drift of sand. Maybe some buffalo in the distance.

Afternoon - 3 PM
Rj & D, having reached Delhi, decide to head to Gurgaon to catch up with some friends. H gives them a call and asks for their plans; they will be joining us at New Delhi station at eight, so they offer him a ride back to that side of town.

Afternoon - 4 PM
C arrives at the Santacruz airport in Bombay, all revved up and ready to go, and is told that his flight has been canceled. The next available flight is at 8:30 PM... and his train is at 9:30 PM. Chaos, frustration and rage at the Indigo counter.

Evening - 6:30 PM
Me & R touch down at Delhi, after an uneventful flight. Decide to call dad just as final verification and realize that we - and everyone else - have to go to Old Del station, not New. Try to call immediately and tell people to leave 45 mins earlier, since that's a lot further off. Rj confirms; C is unreachable.

Meanwhile, Rj is looking at his watch. He needs to start getting ready now, and there's no sign of H.

Back at Santacruz, C has managed to beg, cajole, and bully his way onto a top-secret 6:30 flight. Don't ask me how he managed that, but hats off to him. The Indigo officials quietly smuggle him away from the other irate passengers and sneak him aboard.
The plane, unfortunately, then continues to sit on the tarmac. Remember all those times in your glorious single years when you would get onto a flight / train / bus / cab, spray on your Axe deo and pray to all the gods that be that once, just once, they should bless you with a beautiful, single, intelligent woman sitting beside you? For the first time, it worked... C got one. Started a conversation. But it's very hard to build any relationship upon a foundation of looking at your watch every ten seconds and cursing an airline... so, still today, he wonders what might have been had he not barked involuntarily at the stewardess.

8 PM
Rj is practically falling apart with tension. Still no sign of H and he has got to leave now if he intends to reach... and still drive like Schumacher da puttar. On the other hand, they all drive like that anyway in Del.
R and I reach Old Del stn. Eat some bad food and occupy a table at ComeSum restaurant for two hours with a single Mirinda. C is still unreachable.

8:30 PM
H arrives! His feet barely touch the ground before he is bundled back into the cab and whisked off to Old Delhi.

9:30 PM
I get a call from Rj. He's on the platform, but he doesn't know how he got there or how to get out. I sigh and collect the luggage from the cloakroom, with R shooting venomous glares at the hapless attendant; the policy of putting locks on all luggage (even if you're only hanging it there) has seriously pissed her off.

10:00 PM
Rj meets a Baba on the platform - a firang in orange robes and beads and shaved head - who is heading to Haridwar. C is still unreachable. He asks the Baba, "There's a friend of ours who is coming from Bombay and is supposed to join us, but he isn't here. Do you think he's going to make it?"
The Baba mulls over this, and stares into space for a while. Then, staring into the camcorder, he proclaims with the weight of a Solomonian decision - "Yes. He will. If his intentions are pure, nothing can stop him tonight. Now come and have some chai with me."


10:30 PM
C's flight touches the IGI airport tarmac exactly at the same time as the train shudders and starts moving out of the station. He's missed the train, but will my backup plan work?

11:30 PM
C has used up all our group luck as far as young single female traveling companions are concerned. We do have two single women traveling with us, but they're both nuns, whom R and D shock out of their wits with discussions on celibacy, it's pitfalls and advantages.
Meanwhile, C reaches ISBT looking for a bus to Rishikesh. There's none. All he finds is a disconsolate-looking Delhi person who also wants to go to Rishikesh. C immediately recruits him as a soldier in his Chalo Rishi! campaign and together they commandeer an auto to Anand Vihar, where legend says, buses can be found when all else is lost.
At 1 AM, C and friend find a bus to Roorkee and pile in.

6 AM
Train reaches Haridwar, and we get out. R and D take one look at the ladies' loo on the station and squeak with disgust, so we embark on a quest for a hotel room. A brief trip later, we realize that India is not a very friendly place for people looking for a clean place to crap.
Heading back to the station, we suddenly hear a voice calling out in the Haridwar dawn - "R! R! Rrrrr!" R nearly dies of a heart attack. Never having travelled any further north from Surat, she experiences a brief but awful moment of realizing her fame has spread to small Uttaranchali towns in the Himalayan foothills as well... whipping around, she finds C hanging halfway out of a Vikram laden with bags and passengers, in which he has been traveling from Roorkee since the crack of dawn.

We all stuff ourselves while C recovers from the ordeal of his epic quest, and experience the first taste of the mountains - the water coming from the taps is ice cold. After five years of staidly tepid to unpleasantly hot water in the Bombay taps, this wakes us up like nothing else could.

Take another Vikram to Rishikesh, stopping once to feed the monkeys as a appropriation to the gods. The place is full of Shiva temples, and you suddenly find large Shiva statues in various poses leaping out at you from behind the scenery when you least expect it.