The Odyssey

Disclaimer: This story is woefully late but I figured our biggest trip yet was worth hearing about, even if belated.

Time: 1:50 pm
Date: Wednesday, December 29th, 2010
Place: Lower Kindergarten Classroom, Kiran Center

Scene:

A slightly frazzled Damaris is trying to teach art to a class of five and six year olds when her phone rings.

Damaris: Hi, Daniel.
Daniel: Hi Damaris.
Damaris: ..What’s up?
Daniel: I’m sorry to bother you at work but we’ve had a change of plans.
Damaris: Really? What?
Daniel: Well, we’re going to Agra tonight.
Damaris: We’re not taking the train tomorrow?
Daniel: No. We’ll have dinner at the program house and then leave around 9.
Damaris: Oh, so do we still have Hindi class? I won’t get back from work until like 5.
Daniel: Yeah, Hindi’s from 5 to 7, right? Dinner is at 8 so just pack your stuff after and come over.
Damaris: Um, ok.
Daniel: K, see you tonight. Bye.

I would probably pinpoint that conversation as both the beginning and summary of our first Long Excursion. Long Excursions are called as such because they are Princeton-sponsored trips of seven to nine days and each country is allotted two over their nine-month stay. Our first one was supposed to go a little like this:

Thursday, the 30th - overnight train from Banaras to Agra
Friday, the 31st –See Taj Mahal in Agra and leave that evening on another overnight train to Jodhpur,
Rajastan.
Saturday, the 1st - Tour Jodhpur
Sunday, the 2nd – Day train to Jaisalmer, Rajastan
Monday, the 3rd –Start camel safari
Tuesday, the 4th - Camel safari
Wednesday, the 5th – Return from camel safari and board overnight train to Delhi
Thursday, Friday, Saturday- tour Delhi, and board overnight train on Saturday back to Banaras
Sunday, the 9th – Arrive in Banaras

All in all, the trip was fantastic. As you may have guessed by now, however, everything didn’t exactly go as planned.

          Trains in India, especially during the cold season, are often delayed, sometimes by 10 hours or more, and so at first I thought the change of plans was simply to get a head start on the trip. At Hindi class that evening, however, I discovered that the change was actually due to the fact that the Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays, the equivalent of Sundays for Muslims, and therefore we were leaving on Wednesday so we could arrive in Agra on Thursday to see the monument. In addition, we would no longer being taking an overnight train. Rather, we would be going by overnight taxi. 

         It should also probably be mentioned that taxis in India, or at least Uttar Pradesh, are not bright yellow sedans that run on a meter. They are usually unmarked vehicles of various sizes that you hire for a certain distance or time. Ours was a standard 7-seater and so we crammed our seven in (the five of us, Daniel, and Saurab, our friend and Josh’s homestay brother) and, truth be told, the ride wasn’t that bad. Thirteen hours later we arrived at our hotel in Agra. Sure, we were a little stiff and groggy but after a nice nap, hotel pressure hot shower, and some real food, we rallied, met up with Debbie, another Dragons instructor, and went to see the Taj. Which was awesome. There is no way I can do one of the wonders of the world justice with any description but I will say that even the cold, rainy, and foggy weather in which I saw the tomb couldn’t mask its utter glory and brilliance.

Beautiful inlaid at the Red Fort

Leaving on Wednesday gave us another day in Agra, which we spent several hours of exploring the Red Fort. While perhaps not quite as magnificent as its white marble neighbor, I thoroughly enjoyed wandering the hidden hallways and crannies of the old palace. That evening, we packed up our stuff and headed to the train station to board our train to Jodhpur, a city in the far western state of Rajasthan (near Pakistan). When we arrived at the station, our train had been eleven hours delayed. By the time we left to go back to the hotel, the delay was fourteen hours and counting and would probably cause us to miss our train in Jodhpur to Jaisalmer, another city about five hours away.
So Daniel and Debbie pulled some travel plan juggling magic, we went back to the hotel for a nice New Year’s celebration on stationary ground, and headed out early the next morning to Delhi. In Delhi we planned to kill a few hours with one of Daniel’s friends and then catch a direct overnight train to Jaisalmer. Our time was fairly uneventful, save for perhaps the rickshaw ride from the train station. Katie, Daniela, and I were sharing an auto rickshaw and were a little confused when the rickshaw stopped in the middle of the highway-esque road. We figured the auto was broken or the driver was having a conversation with the auto next to us and prepared to cajole the rickshaw walla into moving when we realized the real reason we had stopped. We were at a stoplight. All three of us let out a whoop of amazement and delight at what seemed like a novelty to us after only three months in Banaras. The rickshaw driver laughed at us.

Jaisalmer Fort

The next day we arrived in Jaisalmer, a beautiful “living fort” in the Thar desert. Jaisalmer was once the fort and capital for a line of Rajastan kings and is now a functioning city in and around the walls of the old fort. The day after arriving and sightseeing around the city, we began our camel safari.

The Caravan 

My lasting impression of camels is that they are huge and double jointed. These characteristics are fairly obvious, yes, but they become exceedingly relevant when you are on a camel that is sitting up or down. The sensation almost feels like riding a bunking bronco, save that with each buck you either become closer or further from the ground. Still, I like to think my noble steed Munhiya and I developed some kind of bond over our time together, especially when I entertained myself by trying to beem thoughts into his head. Camp on a camel safari is literally sleeping on the sand dunes with a ton of blankets in whatever nook you can find. The atmosphere is great and the stargazing is wonderful, however, the conditions do you leave you prone to waking up with the chills and fever, which I did on our second day out. There’s not much to say about that day except that Munhiya stuck by me and by the time Debbie got Saurab (who was also sick) and I back to Jaislamer to a hotel that night, I was more than a little out of it and gratefully passed out on the bed.

Munhiya and Me

The next day, everyone else returned from finishing the safari and we boarded a train and set off back to Delhi. Again, not much to be said about the trip as I spent pretty much the entire 20 hour duration lying on my berth resting and powering through the audio book version of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. 
In Delhi, we stayed at a pleasant hotel in the Tibetan colony, which is essentially an enclosed community of Tibetan refugees. I spent much of the time resting but was roused to go to Khan Market, an epicenter for imported goods and both an intoxicating and dangerous place for those craving treats from home like chocolate syrup,  avocados, and, of course, cheese. Probably far too much money was spent on unnecessary items (like $10 Tostidos) but we were infatuated. Scott, associate director for Bridge Year in Princeton joined us on the second day and that night we attended a function for meeting and getting to know Princeton alumni in Delhi and India. Finally, after running some last minute errands the next day, we arrived at the train station to catch our overnight to Banaras and found out, surprise, surprise, our train was twelve hours delayed. Back to the hotel it was and by the next morning, our train was flat out canceled. This left us in a bit of a pickle as there appeared to be no trains to Banaras in the immediate future and all of us were supposed to be back to work that week. Solution: spend another day in Delhi and get another taxi that night for the 780 kilometers back to Banaras. The day was spent visiting the Indian National Museum and learning some history about the country we’re living in. The night was spent embarking on our second 20 hour ride of the trip, via taxi. Once, such a journey would have sounded ridiculous. Now, in my opinion, all it needs is some cheese and crackers, audiobooks, a touch of fatigue, a dash of flexibility, and a whole bunch of creativity and positive attitude.

At 6:00 pm, on Monday, January, 10th, we arrived back home.