My first day in Palampur was incredibly eventful. It started with a bollywood-fueled swaying bus ride and ended with running through hail laughing with some new Indian friends who spoke no english.
I was escorted to the bus by the lovely Shankar, and in the process I learned quite a bit about him, which was really nice. The Delhi metro system is its own experience. The sardine can cliche comes to mind, but it’s more intense than that because there is pushing and a real alive intensity. What was incredible is that if there was even a tiny nugget of space in the entire car a no-go semi circle would form around me, as if my foreignness was pushing people away, and people turned towards me to watch as a simply rode the metro. It was an odd experience for sure.
The bus station was also its own world, but in a very expected, seemingly very Indian way. Shankar got the bus number from an attendant and made sure I got on the right bus reminding me that Palampur was actually one stop from the end and to pay attention. The bus itself was very comfortable, cushy chairs and AC promised a comfortable journey.
Watching the night light skyline of Delhi grow and shrink was beautiful and fascinating, night time is very different from daytime in that city. Night is the time for trucks bulging with sacks of grain and trailers carrying the bodies of international airplanes to take over the road. The whole experience was otherworldly, probably a combination of the constant Bollywood soundtrack music videos playing in the front of the bus and the florescent lights stuck in trees all along the edges of the road.
The bus journey was monotonous and full of dozing until the started to rise at about 4:50am, and then it became its own experience and entertainment. The built up dust city had fallen away completely, there were monkeys traveling along the side of the road and buildings built so effermerally out of twigs that they made you doubt the occupants attachment to this world. That drive up crazy winding roads going too fast in a bus that was too big gave me a real sense of what I was driving into, a really good idea of the world I was entering.
I got off at the right stop thanks to the kind girl sitting next to me, (she was a real testament to the power of positive thinking, my only thought once I got settled in on the bus was that I wanted a female seat companion.) After a couple minutes of puzzled awkward standing around a car pulled up in front of me and the driver motioned me in after a quick volunteering confirmation. He drove me to my accommodation where I quickly showered and passed out for awhile as night buses are not all that restful.
I woke up a couple hours later when Caitlin, my roommate and new friend was due to arrive as she chose to fly. We were then given very muddled instructions on how to take the bus to the market, but our coordinator followed on his motorbike, the preferred method of transport in India, so we made it just fine. It can take two buses to get from our very nice little house to the market, which is in the center of Palampur, and although they are often overcrowded, a ride costs 3 rupees, or about a nickel.
We explored the market with our guide for a little while and then picked up a couple of essentials for the week before trying our best to catch the bus back on our own. I am confident we would have eventually found one going in the right direction, but we were helped out by a guy who spoke surprisingly good english who we later found out worked for adobe. He was very nice, and offered to give us his number if we needed further help, but we politely declined.
Finally we were on our way back! I don’t think I’ve ever touched that many people at one time in my entire life. I was amazed the bus still drove forward after packing that many people in. I leaned over to Caitlin and whispered “Well, nobody said it was luxury travel.” and we kept joking about becoming one with the bus the rest of the ride. There was one person on the bus who had understood that we wanted to get off at the school so when we got there we were waved off. I have never been so relieved to leave a form of public transportation.
We were happy to be off of the bus but we were confused. The coordinator had made it seem like the bus would drop us off at the same stop we left from, which was opposite a steep hill from the school, but we had ended up right in front of the school. The sky was darkening, rain was definitely approaching, which would in any other circumstance be totally welcome– it had been HOT that week in Delhi, even the locals thought so, but now we were well on our way to becoming lost. We followed the direction the bus had gone in and decided to take a well-traveled trail up the side of the hill, as we knew we wanted to be opposite the school.
We followed that path for a while, passing a couple cows as is normal in India, and I started to get nervous. Caitlin was still in a good mood, she loves rainstorms and wouldn’t mind getting caught in one, but I was worried about what that much water would do to infrastructure in the area and we were without a working phone. When the well traveled path we were following faded and turned into more of a cow path I sharply demanded that we find someone and borrow their phone as a response to her suggestion that we keep following it.
So we turned around and walked up a path to some nearby houses where a family happened to be relaxing outside (the weather in Palampur is much nicer than Delhi) I said hello and when the girl asked if I spoke Hindi I said no and just said the word telephone, holding my hand up to my ear. She smiled and said “Of course” disappearing inside to grab a phone for us to use. We called our coordinator, and when he didn’t pick up the first time I started to get really nervous. We called again and he picked up, Caitlin told him we were lost while I asked the girl if she would talk to him. She took the phone and had a quick conversation with him in Hindi, the result of which was that she would guide us to a nearby road and he would come pick us up. The whole family was lovely and gave us chairs to sit in while we made the call. There was lots of smiling and laughing, they politely asked us for a quick picture and of course we agreed. Caitlin got one on her phone too, it was the first “Selfie! Selfie!”- like request we were happy to agree to.
As they showed us the way down to the road, of course traveling as a group with the foreignors, it began to rain. And then the rain got a bit harder. And then the wind started, blowing the dust that stayed firmly on the ground all day right into our faces. There was much laughing and squeaking during this walk as we established that we were American and that we did, indeed, have a Facebook. I look forward to friending her as soon as I get back online. The rain was getting pretty hard at this point so we were happy to climb in the car waiting for us with our coordinator inside. We waved and then watched them scramble back up the hill.
As we were driving back to our place we heard a thump on the roof. Then suddenly there were more thumps and it was full on hailing on us in India! We couldn’t believe it, the quiet day had turned so violent so quickly, some of the hail was approaching ping pong size. We actually had to wait in the car for a little while even though we had driven basically up to the front door it was so crazy.
We ran out of the car with the intention of climbing the outdoor stairs that led to our room but the family that lives downstairs waved us in and we had a lovely cup of tea, watching the sky fall down outside in the dark nibbling on biscuits. When it was over the ground was white with hail, but only for a little while, as it was still warm out and it melted quickly.
What a day! So far Palampur has been more than beautiful and the window I was looking for into Indian culture, but also incredibly exciting.