A crazy start

I’m sitting at Heathrow with an hour to go before I can even check in. If I’ve talked to you in the last several days, you’ve no doubt heard my tirade about how much this airport makes me want to kill someone. Probably shouldn’t type that actually or they might take me in for questioning!

After 6 days in Geneva and Paris, I’m finally on my way to Delhi. Not that I would have minded a few more days in Europe (it was a wonderful break, but more on that later), but I’m ready to get settled.

Today has been the type of day that some might consider a bad omen. I woke up early (after Rebecca and I stayed up half the night watching “Weeds”), crammed the last few things I could manage into my suitcase, said my goodbyes, and we were in the car by 7:30—VERY early for my 10:50 flight, “just to be safe because you never know with Paris traffic.”

“Oh sh*t!” I looked at Rebecca, assuming we were low on gas or had taken a wrong turn. And then I saw the very red light. The car was overheating.

“Water,” I said because it sounded like the right thing for an overheating car. Rebecca turned on the heat full blast because an old boyfriend with a really crappy car used to do it. There was a gas station just ahead so we kept driving. It was closed. Finally we pulled over, Nalgene in hand. The water tank sizzled, liquid boiled inside, and steam or maybe smoke started drifting out. It was full. Since we were out of ideas and the minutes were ticking by, we started driving again. The noises were not good. It started to smell like burning. We pulled over on the highway. A garbage man offered mostly useless advice, but did point out a gas station just behind us (ie. back down the entrance ramp). In true Kugler style, Rebecca reversed all the way, drove up on the sidewalk, and went to call a taxi.

Finally, her friend Michel came to pick me up. “We won’t make it,” he said, “so I’ll drive you to the airport bus. It can drive in lanes without traffic.” Great. I hugged Rebecca, and we were off—to sit and sit and sit in traffic. He kept promising the bus was just ahead, and I imagined the various scenarios if I missed the plane. It would be fine—really—I could figure it out.

I thought of the only other time I’d almost missed an important journey—a train in Delhi with Hannah three years ago in what turned out to be one of the best trips of my life. Well then, I told myself, this racing to the airport couldn’t be all bad. Maybe it was actually a good sign. The start of an adventure.

I made it to bus at around 9:15 and actually got to the airport more than an hour before my flight. I didn’t count on the total incompetence of the British Airways check-in staff, though, and found myself literally running onto the plane moments before it was to take off. Fortunately, I managed to laugh at least once before boarding. They checked everyone’s bags before we could get on the plane. Of course, I had my Nalgene filled with water, so the guy handed it me and told me to drink. Then he and the other guys stared at me in silence for a few moments. “Dead or not dead?” one asked. Okay, actually I guess it wasn’t that funny, but I really needed the giggle.

Okay, time to check in. Just for fun, I copied the email I sent people about my wild trip with Hannah below. Rereading it made me laugh.

*****

Words I actually spoke just a few minutes ago: "Hannah, this is a nightmare. I'm going to wake up with my sandals on and my passport fixed." Um...yeah. Such pretty much sums up our journey thus far. (Mom and dad, don't freak out yet. It's like a Disney movie...it has to have a happy ending.)

I'm writing from Delhi, which we will be leaving shortly...we hope. It's 11:30 on January 3. We arrived at the train station in Bangalore at 3:00 on January 1. We had wait list tickets for a train to Delhi, but had applied for "emergency quota," which means seats saved for emergencies and apparently foreigners, too. So the woman told us the day before to go back to the reservations counter to find out if we could get on the train three hours before departure (we were numbers 146 and 147 on the wait list respectively...not good). In the reservations building all the lines were at least 20 people long...not unusual...and we waited. At some point I looked over at Hannah and said, "I don't think there's anyone working here." Sure enough the lines hadn't moved in over an hour and the people who were supposed to be selling tickets were in the back chatting and drinking chai. Turns out the power was out in Madras, paralyzing all railway computers. So we waited and waited. Finally I got someone away from her tea and asked about the waiting list. She said go to the main enquiries office in the main station. There we went. I handed over the ticket and the woman there gave it back. "Platform 8," she said. "Yes, I know," I told her, "but how do we know if we're actually on the train." "Platform 8," she insisted, "special ticket window." Okay, so we went to platform 8. No ticket window. We walked up and down and up and down. We noticed a small hut with something about tickets, but the men inside said "Platform 8." "This is platform 8," I argued. "You go to platform 8." So we walked up and down the platform again, and finally dropped our bags in a fit of laughter. It was over 90 degrees. We were so close, but sooooooo far. The story goes on and on until 15 minutes before the train left when we were finally confirmed with seats.

Of course, the seats were on the side...not so comfy or the safest, and we figured we'd put our bags under someone else's seats. Let's just say we started the trip with a screaming match with an evil evil man who almost ripped my bag in half. But our bags made it safely under our own seats eventually.

The first night I was TIRED. Hannah and I decided to chew gum instead of brushing our teeth. I went to pee before going to sleep. The toilet on Indian trains is a hole. Everything goes through it just out onto the tracks. So I peed and decided to throw my gum out too. Only the train jerked and my gum didn't go through. Not wanting to touch the toilet hole but not wanting to leave my gum there, I decided to try to kick it down. The next thing I knew, my shoe was gone. Yup, that's right. I kicked my shoe down the toilet. I'm actually cracking up in this internet parlor writing about it. I walked out of the toilet one shoe on and one shoe off back to our beds and simply said, "I just lost my shoe down the toilet." We literally laughed for an hour. And are still laughing. I managed to dig out my one other pair of shoes from my bag, but now I live in fear of going to the bathroom!

Once we arrived in Delhi 37.5 hours after leaving Bangalore, we got into a rickshaw. As we froze and cursed ourselves for not taking a cab, the rickshaw just stopped. And the scene repeated itself several times. Stuck in the middle of an intersection the motor just stopped and the rickshaw driver got out and banged some things in the back until it would go again. But we made it eventually to the other train station from where our next train should leave. Unfortunately they could not confirm us on that train either, so we decided to get breakfast and check into a hotel for a few hours at least and shower and change into warmer clothes.

...And that's when I discovered the problem with my passport. So the guy here at the YWCA asks me when I arrived in India. "December 19th." "There's no stamp on this visa." "Oh yeah, I know, I think he stamped the wrong Indian visa." I point out a stamp from Mumbai that says 19 December. "Excuse me, madam, but there is no year on this stamp. I don't know when you have arrived in India." "Well it was 2003. I guess he forgot to write it in." I slowly realize that this might be a real problem. "Madam, see this is not a full stamp. It must say the year. I am thinking this will not be okay when you are leaving the country. See, your visa is okay, but we cannot know when you have arrived." ("Oh my god, Hannah, I can't believe this is happening. I really can't believe this.") "Okay, sir, who do I need to talk to about this?" "One moment." "Wait, can we at least put our stuff in the room while we figure this out?" "Madam, we must not give you a room. Without this information we cannot." Anyway, he eventually called the foreign registration office, where they said to use my ticket as proof, so we got our room finally, and they say I'll be okay leaving the country too. "Human error, Madam. This is India." Yes, yes it is.

So that brings us to the present. We should know soon if we'll be able to leave for Bodh Gaya today. That's another 12 hours. But I have to say, I couldn't ask for a better travelling companion. There are no tears, there's no whining. We just laugh. We laugh long and hard and eat cookies. And when we don't feel like laughing, one of us simply says, "Um...I just lost my shoe down the toilet." And then we laugh...