Sunday, August 8, 2010

This Post Has Few Photos & A Lot of Vomit. Hooray!

Sorry for the delay in this section. But we've been sort of dreading posting it, because it starts out kind of unpleasant and without any fun photos and then gets reeeeally long and barfy. Don't all of those things sound just dreadful?



Well, it's too late to turn back now! You've already clicked on our link and the page has loaded and there's nothing you can do about it! Hahahahahaha!



(sorry.)



CHAPTER 4: The Nepalese Plague


When we had said our regretful goodbyes to Rishikesh but looking forward to our journey to Nepal, we hopped in a cab to make the hour trip back to the Haridwar Train Station. We made sure to leave ourselves just over an hour of extra time to find our train and seating assignments.



This cab was less frenzied than the others and we were able to enjoy some of the in-between scenery. Several of the road bridges were in heavily wooded areas with beautiful rushing streams going underneath us. Gorgeous. As Mary was admiring one such stream she got a bit of a shock...There was a man, floating along backward with the fast current, arms spread wide with a giant smile on his face. And she thought, "Well, there you go. The people really are EVERYWHERE."


And she made her peace with it.



When we reached the Haridwar Train station, we went in to check on our train seats and discovered that the oft late Poggies had managed to show up THREE HOURS ahead of our departure. We weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves, and Haridwar is a bit rough, so we parked ourselves in the sun next to the Shiva monument. Basically, we were the only white-skinned people and we were on super display.



At one point, Mike watched as a college-age guy walked nervously near us and hung a towel over the railing that surrounded the statue and then giggled his way up to his six buddies. We were pretty used to this kind of thing by now. It was school holiday in India and many Southern Indians had come North for vacation. And a lot of them had never seen a white person before.



We were often asked to pose for photos with embarrassed wives, excited grandparents or entire families. And, occasionally, were handed horrified babies.

(this is not at the train station)

Mary- being the whitest person ON the planet- was the most popular.


So when two of the college kids eventually came up to talk to us, we weren't very surprised. It soon became clear that they were sent to test the waters, and the other five eventually came running over to hear noise come out of those glowing white faces.


Well, one glowing white face and one brownish-white face.


We chatted for a while and they suggested that we camp out in a building designated as the train station waiting room. Happy for a reprieve from the blazing sun, we went over to check it out. The moment we walked inside, we were swarmed by begging hands and sorrowful eyes. It was heart breaking, but also, unfortunately, potentially dangerous, so we decided to wait outside in the shade. We stood against a half wall so that Mike could rest the pack on it without taking it off of his back.

That's when we were approached by a woman.


"Hello, will you sign my petition?" she asked, thrusting a piece of paper into our hands.

We looked at it and saw that it was basically a list of names with an amount of donated money next to it. She told us that she and her family needed our money and that we must help them. As she continued to tell us her sad story, Mary caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned around in alarm and standing there against the wall, with less than an inch of space between us, was a man who appeared to be about 6'5" and who looked very angry as he stared down at us.

"Oh! Hello!" said Mary with a startled laugh, expecting a greeting back.

He just glared. Angrily.

The woman said, "I do not know that man." She continued her spiel.

And that's when our wonder twin psychic intuition kicked in. There was NO WAY we were taking out our wallets. We told her that we were sorry and that we had given the last of our cash to our taxi driver. Her jaw tightened and she turned to Mary.

"Well, then, give me your clothes."

"My clothes?"

"Yes. If you do not have money for me, then I will have your clothes."

Yeeeeah. We, again, decided not to make ourselves vulnerable by digging through our things and turned her down. They stood there staring at us for a bit until, finally, she looked at the man and they both walked away. We decided to take our chances in the sun.


There were other encounters. Such as a woman that demanded that we let her take our photo in front of Shiva for 50 rupees. When we declined her offer, she grabbed Mary's hand with her fingernails, dug in and began to pull her away from Mike. Mary told her "no" again, yanked her hand away and the woman brought her own hand back as though to strike. But then the man traveling with her raised his hand against the woman and she hissed at us and walked away. Not exactly a satisfying outcome.


And then there were the men that gabbed on and on to us in Hindi (perfectly friendly if confusing) as another man inched closer and closer to Mike's pack. Eventually one of our college kid friends came up and shooed the pack incher away. There also was a man dressed as a Hindu deity wheeling himself about and begging (Eddie Murphy in Trading Places-style, if that makes sense) that approached us when we weren't paying attention and grabbed Mary's bare ankle. That poor man got a nice show of just how easily startled Mary can be. Oops.

There were other encounters that were much more painful than concerning, but we'll get to that later. We feel it is important to say this, however: We had done our research and knew how to protect ourselves from any real danger but, honestly, this was actually pretty tame, danger-wise. And this was the only time we felt uncomfortable in this way. So if you are planning on traveling to India or having an opinion about it, don't let this story thwart you or make you feel negatively about it. It was a mere three hours in the span of two weeks.

It should also be mentioned that formerly scaredy-pants Michael was cool as a cucumber throughout the entire thing. He might not have felt it, but here was nary a hint of the Disney Princess that day. He kept a smile on his face and his voice steady. 60 million points for THAT guy.


At last, exhausted, dehydrated and feeling...How do you describe this? Traumatized? Shell shocked? Ashamed of the abundance in which we had lived our lives? Angry that our fear was stronger than our empathy?...feeling changed, we boarded our train.


Mike made quick friends with our seat mate--an Indian engineer-- as Mary's head suddenly began to swim. And her stomach began to lurch. When his train buddy got up to use the facilities, Mike leaned over to her with a concerned face.


"Something's wrong," she told him. "Just say a little prayer that I don't hurl on this damn train."



We arrived in Delhi, sans hurling, at about 10:30pm and began the search for our pick-up driver. When we couldn't find him, we negotiated a ride with two drivers that swore to us they knew where our hotel was.



They didn't. By the time we arrived at our hotel, it was past midnight. We were mentally and physically exhausted and filthy...And Mary was fighting the urge to pass out, weep and vomit. Simultaneously.




The man that escorted us to our room didn't quite grasp this, however, and kept trying to get us to order things.


"You want beer? I bring you beer. How many you like?"


"No, no. We're just really tired and want to go to bed, thanks."


"Okay. So I bring you dinner. You look at this menu and I bring you dinner."


"No, my wife is not feeling well and we have to get up in a few hours. Can we please just get some bottles of water?"


"Okay, yes. And then, maybe in an hour, you order some dinner and beer, okay?"


He brought the water, Mary took one sip and...well, she didn't keep it down. She projectile didn't keep it down. For a long time. We set our alarm for 4am and crawled miserably into bed.


At about 1am, Mike got up and ran to the bathroom to vomit.



Somehow we managed to drag ourselves out of bed the next morning and get ourselves to the airport. And, oh geez, the security--if you thought American airport security measures were laborious, India will blow your mind. And standing in line that long while you feel like you might be mutating into some sort of gelatinous monster is the opposite of a good time.


The flight to Nepal was short and the Air India staff was lovely, and we were just happy to be able to close our eyes and slump. We did perk up for a moment when we flew over Mount Everest and then silently screamed at our bodies, as we involuntarily slipped back into our coma, "But it's Mount Everest! You can't fall asleep when Mount Freaking Everest is visible! What is wrong with you?!?!? Stay awake! Stay awake! Stay a...zzzzzzzzzzz..."

When we arrived at our hotel, the Kathmandu Prince Guest House, we were greeted by the manager who was eager to help us set up some excursions. We arranged to have someone take us out to a rural area at sunset so that we could see something besides the city and told him we would consider the plane ride over the mountains for the next morning (that we were even considering such a thing should show you how sick Cheapie and Cheapo were feeling).




We went upstairs to take a recovery nap in our room (with the non-functioning A/C) and realized very quickly that leaving the hotel room would be incredibly poor decision making. So we canceled our sunset ride and spent our first day in Kathmandu like this:



Note the pathetic but hopeful cuddling of the guide book.


We did eventually get our A/C going (so long as the generator was working) and, just after the sun went down, the sky burst into a wonderful cooling rain. We stood at the balcony door for a minute and watched as it drenched the darkened streets of a city we had yet to see. Then these sickly Poggies dragged our tired bodies back to bed and went to sleep, saying a prayer that no more days in this magical place would be wasted...


(Spoiler Alert: They weren't. See?)





Next up: The Final Chapter: Kathmandu & Agra OR "No, We Do Not Want Your Streetfight/Marijuana/Sex"