My last day in Mcleod Ganj was a bittersweet day of goodbyes and good food.
I woke up, still a bit sore and tired from the mountainous trek the day before, to have one final morning yoga with the class I found a few days before. It was a great class, with a bit more intensity than the class I had had before with the same woman instructor. We did more stretching, sweated a bit more. Maybe it was because her yoga teacher had come to the class that morning to evaluate her. In any case, I was satisfied for the 2 hours of class. I rather like that length of yoga class; you can get a lot more out of it than the hurried one-hour classes we have in the city.
Some odd things happened during the class. Firstly, phones were ringing during our sun salutations, jarring us from the serene flow that normally happens during yoga. Then, two Indian policemen came banging on the studio door as we held a downward dog position. The teacher's teacher left to deal with them, so I'm not sure what happened, but it was very bizarre to happen. Lastly, one of the women in class had brought her dog to wait outside during our class. The dog disagreed with waiting and decided to walk in during warrior pose to look for his owner.
The goodbyes began early. I went to First Cup to have my last good porridge in town with Tal and Hasina. We talked for a while, and Tal (being extremely tall and lean) ate about 3 meals in roughly an hour. Hasina and I went for some final errands for me and left Tal at the cafe, to only come back an hour or so later and find him still sitting there. It's really amusing to sit with Tal, because he seems to know everyone in the area; while sitting with him, people kept on coming over to talk to him, and others in the cafe would wave him over for a chat. When we came back to him, we found another Israeli talking with him. We rejoined the table and ended up reading for a few hours, ordering more drinks and food, until we went over to the English conversations with the Tibetan refugees.
I couldn't find Nyiga at first in the conversations, so I was placed in a room with a Buddhist nun. I didn't catch her name. She was very sweet, though, and though her accent was a bit too thick and her English was a bit too rough to hold a flowing conversation, I did manage to get some kind of information out of her about Buddhism life and the different sects of Tibetan Buddhism. She is what she called "Neehma".
Then Nyiga found me, talking with the woman! It was great, and we ended up stumbling through a conversation of three. It seemed that their English was better together, though, because they could talk to each other in Tibetan and make a team effort to explain things to me. Nyiga and I joked around a bit, and when it was time for me to leave and them to have dinner, he draped a white silk cloth on my shoulders, gave me a hug, and we talked about emailing each other still. When I come back here, Nyiga, I'm serious about trying nomadry with you. Get the yaks ready.
I walked over to get some momos to-go for my long trip back to Delhi at Peace Cafe. When I walked into the restaurant, I found the original group of British guys I hung out with on my return trip from Amritsar! I hadn't seen them since the first day, but here they were, ready to leave for Manali in a few hours - much like how I was leaving for Delhi in a few hours. It was like a small reunion, only their group had about doubled/tripled in size. They had me join their dinner party, though, and I rounded the number up to 12 English-speaking folk, essentially filling the whole restaurant. I had my final authentic Thentuk dish. We talked about what we had done in town so far, and I encouraged them to come to NYC so I can show them around. They seemed to be seriously interested in my offer, so we'll see how that goes.
And I left with a bag of momos.
I came back to Pink House and spent my final evening hours in the lounge with Javid and his Indian friends, along with some of the guests I had befriended during my solo stay there. We ate coconuts and danced to some Indian music. We laughed for a few hours, and the Indian men all seemed quite taken with my Indian-influenced conversation and dance. I did not tell them my marital status.
Finally, at 9pm, my driver came to bring me out of my little idyllic town to the Pathankot train station (2.5 hours away) for my 1am sleeper train to Delhi. It was sad, leaving this place that I felt so comfortable in, with all of my new friends. I fell asleep in the car in no time.
The first time I woke up in the car was when the driver stopped for a dinner/coffee break somewhere in the crevices of the dark mountain side. I wobbled in and out of consciousness for about 30 minutes before we started driving again, and I promptly fell fast asleep again.
The second time I woke up in the car was when I felt the car quickly slowing down and making dying noises - you know, the clanking sound of a dying engine should always be able to wake up us sleepers. The driver got out of the car to open the hood and prod away at the engine and battery, poking at parts that he seemingly hadn't seen much before this trip. I look around us, and we are in the middle of nowhere. I think the town was probably rural, and the main street we were on was very much closed and empty of people. I saw a sign for some hundred kilometers for a town I didn't know, but no signs for Pathankot. I called Maulin in a slight panic, wondering where I was, why I was alone with a strange cabby in the middle of nowhere, and how I was going to make my train. It was 11:45pm. I call Javid, who soudned distressed when he said to me, "Yeah, you're not near Pathankot..."
Then men started coming out toward our car. Slowly, villagers were looking at the car, and talking with each other. More and more men came to join the pack, and even a few Indian officers came over to look at the stranded American girl and driver. Though, no one seemed too interested in trying to get the car started; they were all enjoying each other's conversations too much. I started to panic more. In my non-existent Hindi, I started trying to beseech these men that I had to go, simply shouting out words "Pathankot" and "ehck (one)" while motioning me having to go. Of course no one knew English, either... "Acha, acha" was the response I got from all of the men, simply telling me to relax. No problem.
30 minutes go by, and it's 12:15am, and I am now very restless, and on the verge of throwing a fit. By this time, there are a few other cars parking nearby to look at what is going on. All of them tourist cars. Why, I was wondering, was I not in one of those FUNCTIONING cars, driving away?! The men all conversed as I looked around to soak in the lunacy in front of me. I am more urgent in my motions, and finally someone calls my driver to tell them to get me to my bloody train! After some issues with money and me begging a man with a car with more rupees to get me to the train, I am transfered to another tourist car and sped down the road.
As it so happens, we were 30km from the train station, which normally takes 40 minutes. I had 25. We sped a lot, barely missing cows and dogs and other cyclists.
At 12:55am the cabby stops at a slight blockade in the road. The train tracks' blocks were down. He looked at me apologetically and says, "You will not make your train. This is your train..." I look up, and there a big sleeper train steadily passes our car, to the VERY nearby station. I get out of the car to watch it in the quiet darkness, and begin to swear profusely. I am not much of a swearer, but I decided that this was a time of urgency, and the only thing I could do was swear. And swear I did. Here I am, watching MY train go by, with MY seat, and MY only way to get to Delhi for a very long time. I almost prepared my bags so that I could run onto the tracks and garb hold of the train before it leaves me completely behind. The driver said it wasn't a good idea, so I looked at him and said "You're getting me to that train."
The blocks went up, and the cab slid through to the train station. The train was still holding there. I threw some money at the cabby, and with my bags already on me, I ran to the train, yelling, "Delhi?!" As the train started blaring its horns and preparing to move, I threw myself into a car with my luggage.
The controller looks down on me on the floor and says, "You are Kimberly?" How did he know?
It so happens that the car I threw myself into was the car I was supposed to be in, serendipitously. So he showed me my sleeper bunk, and I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow, sweating through my clothes and sheets. But it was not real sleep, because I was too hot and tired and stressed out from the experience.
At 8am I got out of my bunk and read utnil we arrived at Delhi, two hours later. It was very humid and hot, and I was exhausted in so many different ways. The new challenge: finding my guest house/hotel. I slid into a cab that got lost for about an hour in Karol Bagh. I was sweating profusely, but more upset about not being asleep in my hotel room. The cab driver finally looks behind to me and says, "Ma'am, it is a house....not a hotel."
It can never be easy, can it?
So I haul my luggage up the stairs of an apartment complex until I reached the roof, hoping to find the manager that would bring me somewhere sane. Instead, I landed on a roof in some man's apartment, who looked at me a little bewilderedly, but then invited me to sit down and have a tea. Alright, no problem, he says. He knows the guys who were supposed to get me my resting spot, I'll get a hotel through them, no problem. Did I know what was going on? Absolutely not.
Some guy grabs my bags and brings me all the way back outside, for me to run into a very attractive Kashmiri, Zahid. Tired though I may be, I am still female, and I was taken aback by this guy. I blushed as he exlpains to me that I was going to have a hotel room nearby, and he showed me my room and gave me his mobile to call when I was down settling in. So I napped and showered. And found myself in his tourism office. A very nice group of guys have apparently taken me in and adopted me in this tourism office, and I get to use their internet as they serve me meals and tea.
So I decided to walk to Karol Bagh market and walk around. I went to a fast food joint, Raffles, for lunch, but the heat and exhaustion and constant hassle on the streets made me kind of sick, so I went back and took another nap.
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