Sunday, July 1st - Amritsar

Cute, huh?

Not sure if I could ever get used to India.  Yesterday morning we left Dharamsala at around 7am.  We were headed to Amritsar in the western border state of Punjab.  We'd hired two cabs, one carrying six and ours carrying three.

The journey was billed as a 5-6 hour trip.  I don't know why I even think it will take that amount of time.  The variables involved in Indian travel are too numerous and random to mention.  Things that impacted our actual journey, however, included the following:

• The language barrier.  Our driver spoke very limited English.  We spoke very limited Hindi (actually about all I know is "sit down" and "repeat after me").  Combine this with the fact that the typical Indian response to a question posed in English is "yes" regardless of the whether or not the answer to the question is yes, or even whether or not the question is understood.
• Traffic.  At one point we were stopped for ten minutes for no apparent reason besides the fact that all of the cars in front of us were stopped.
• Tea breaks.  Fewer on this time around, but still too many considering the fact that it was over 100 degrees out.
• Random additional breaks.  Usually spontaneous bathroom breaks for the drivers on the side of the road.  But other times for driver conferences.  The reasons for these meetings are highlighted next.
• Detours.  Completely unmarked, and in reality optional, as some vehicles choose to continue along as if the road under construction was not have finished and partially paved.  And you can always just drive around the massive piles of dirt and rock used in road construction.
• Getting lost.  Our drivers got lost - twice.  We were driving from one giant city to another and they managed to get lost.  Not that I would have done any better, but I'm paying these people because they are experts.

So back to the beginning of the journey.  We left Dharamsala at about 7am.  Immdediately we began the descent.  Dh'sala is nestled in the foothills at around 1200m.  Amritsar is well under a few hundred meters.  We zipped along the winding mountain roads, our driver rarely taking heed of the helpful signs that showed up before many hairpin turn ("Do Not Dare!  Drive With Care!" and "Be Gentle On My Curves").  Reaching the bottom of the mountains was relief until we realized that the temperature had risen considerably.  The average 80 degree days of Dharamsala had given way what was sure to be Hellish.  Barely 9:00 and it was already well above 90 degrees.  Well, now is a great time to stop for tea and scrmuled egg.  Thank God its hygienic. 

From there we left Himachel Pradesh and entered Punjab in the heat and the traffic that is India.  Again, I became amazed that I was still alive.  What would be considered a close call in the US was becoming an hourly experience here.  Passing a truck in the wrong lane while oncoming traffic squeezes past in the exact same lane is no big deal.  Being nearly forced off the road when the car you are passing decides that it too would like to pass the vehicle in front of him scares the daylights out of me but doesn't even phase our driver.  And then there is the dodging - of spilled goods, pedestrians, bikes, rickshaws, horse drawn carts, potholes, washed out sections of road, etc, etc, etc.

After some time driving we stopped on a very small road in the middle of some rice field, lost I believe (we had left the main road due to some road construction then driven through some very small villages and side roads to end up with both drivers out of their cars conversing with the random person then turning around, retracing steps and repeating).  Reconstructing our journey up to this point it seems that to avoid some unexpected road construction we'd taken an impromptu detour.  We were now smack dab in the middle of a primitive farm community.  Women were rolling cow pies to dry on the walls of their yards.  A future source of fuel we reasoned.  The diversity in India is amazing.  I have to stop this post here for the sake of time.  But there is much more to come.   

Lost in the rice paddy.  I'd like to say incompetent, but they did end up getting us to Amritsar...