Of Crazy Drivers and Amazing Landscapes

So, I will officially never complain about American drivers ever again. Wednesday, I had my first introduction to Indian driving habits. Compared to here, Americans are tame. Posted speed limits are completely ignored. Three lanes are crammed with 6 cars side by side. Motorcycles and mopeds slide between cars with barely an inch between them and the next car. Cars swerve in and out of traffic finding the fastest routes and nearly causing serious accidents in the process. When rushed on time, they have no problem speeding at 70km/hour in opposing traffic’s lane straight at oncoming traffic. Drivers squeeze through tight spaces barely making it through. They dodge random people walking across and in the middle of the road. They take turns as fast as possible. The people are insane. I sat in my seat for most of the trip to the bus station (which would transport us to Palampur) with white knuckles breathing a sigh of relief at each near miss.

            The bus ride was mildly insane as well. The bus takes turns on mountainous roads at fast speeds as well. You are bounced around swerving from side to side with each turn. The air is either all the way on and freezing or completely off and stifling. The luggage in compartments above the seats are barely staying in them compartments and on some occasions landing on people’s heads. My arm was so sore following the bus ride. I have a good bruise on the elbow where my arm was jammed into the armrest consistently. Sleep was nigh on impossible. It was the 12-hour bus drive through hell. I’ll take any other mode of transportation over the bus system here.

            On a better note, arriving in Palampur on Thursday morning was amazing. Our first view was of the cliff at the edge of the village with a nice, fast flowing, mountain river flowing between the two mountains. As we got into the cars to travel to the house, we got our first view of the mountains. There are 3 mountains easily seen with trees all the way at the top (I learned we will be climbing one of them and the top is about 11,000 ft). There are 2 of them that are tall enough you can see the white, snowy tops in the early morning. As the day goes on, clouds tend to obscure the tops of the mountains. I have taken some pictures in the morning, but starting tomorrow I’m going to have my camera out and taking pictures of the landscape that I am living in. So far we’ve had rain every afternoon, which cools the area down from upper 70’s to low 70’s and later 50’s for the night. The sun rises about 5am here and almost everyone seems to wake with the sun.

            After we reached the house, we unpacked. We found out the house had literally finished being built Wednesday and was declared livable. As of now, we have no internet, no hot water, and the kitchen isn’t functioning yet. So, we go to the old house everyday for food. We found out the locally the areas were designated as the upper or lower area because the city is on a slope. They don’t designate direction like left or right or north or south. So, the houses we spend most of our time at are known as the upper house, which is where we sleep and studying and has the best view of the mountains and river, and the lower house where we have classes, the office, and eat.

            Thursday afternoon, we went shopping for clothing. I bought two salwar kameez (the traditional clothing including pants, shirt, and scarf) and two kurtas (just a shirt). They are being made at the tailors at the moment and will be finished by Wednesday next week. We also sampled Indian coffee, which is very much like espresso in the US and then drowned in milk and sugar. We ate three meals here on Thursday and the homemade food was wonderful. We have dhal (lentils) at every meal as well as chapatti (tortilla like bread). Breakfast consists of warm milk, corn flakes, chapatti and some main dish. Thursday morning we had fruit (papaya and mango) and yogurt. We have chai between 2 to 3 times daily. The chai is amazing. You can’t find chai that beats traditional Indian, homemade, chai. So for most of Thursday we took the time to settle in, shop, and be introduced to our surroundings.

Friday we began our lessons in Hindi. The professor, Christoph, is American. He has lived in India for three years. He comes from Seattle. He and his wife, Ranni, a traditional Indian woman, are helping to teach the intensive Hindi course. Christoph, having been told that some of us have had a few years of Hindi language exposure, decided to place us in a separate group taught by his wife. I am part of that group. The nice thing is instead of the 9-3 intensive study, we study from 9-10:30 with Ranni and 3:30-5 with Christoph. The majority of the day we are studying the background information needed for our internships.

The trip is forcing me to draw a lot on the lessons learned during my previous trip to Costa Rica. Many aspects of the culture are similar. Time is completely relative here, people are extremely open, and other aspects of the plumbing and electricity are similar. It’s been fun because toilet paper cannot be put in the toilet, trash is burned since there is no trash system. We do some basic chores such as washing dishes and keeping the house clean. At the upper house, we will be planting a kitchen garden, which everyone has been asked to help tend. I’m really excited about the kitchen garden.

We don’t have traditional showers. We have what we call a bucket shower. You fill the bucket with water and dump it over your head with a cup to wash. So far we’ve been promised hot water in the upper house but right now it’s still ice cold so showers are interesting for sure. I’ve had to make some changes to my routine because it’s difficult to do many things with my arm the way it is. We are very cautious of where we get our water and food due to the concern over the purity of the water.

Over all the first few days have been interesting. It’s been a lot of fun. I’ve had some issues with the food the last day or so where it just tasted too strong and I didn’t want the spice combinations even though it smelled and tasted good. We eat a lot of rice and starch so we fill up fast. It’s been fun and I’ll try to keep up posting.