From slowdance of Nepal to foxtrot of India


[posting this WAY post-factum]

India, Gorakhpur Train Station, 3:35 PM 05-12-2011



From Slowdance of Nepal to Foxtrot of India

What an adventure it was to get to a New Delhi train today! On the Nepalese side, there was an all-around auto-strike [that police didn't know about a day in advance!]. That means – just cows, goats and bikes on the roads.....Specifically, in Lumbini, where I was. That meant that the only way for me to get out of the place was to take a bicycle rickshaw to Sonauli [about 2 hours one way with that mode of transport]. That was a trip....literally. Seeing in slow-pace everything from little naked kids to little naked goats wandering the road this and that way....women in colourful embroidered saris carrying impossible-looking loads on their heads with feather-like grace.....plus the bumpety-bump rhythm did get me into the meditative mode.

That was a kind way to get out of Nepal. Especially, given my morning candle-lit chanting experience at the Korean Buddhist Monastery where I stayed for a couple days while in Lumbini. Nepal-peace.....a breath of quiet and harmonious pace before entering the whirlwind of India. That began right at the Sonauli gate.

I immediately got recruited into a taxi that was promising to take me to Gorakhpur within 2 hours. As opposed to the 4 hour local bus. Given that I didn't have a train ticket yet, I figured, time may serve me. So I agreed to the much larger price....only to find out that the driver has failed to mention that we will be stopping a] to eat for 1 hour and 2] for his joint and 3] that he'd be falling asleep at the wheel after that [which really irked the 3 Nepalese passengers in the back seat who made him stop and drink some sobering drink]. I just laughed at the experience [which did take around 4 hours after all, LOL]. So much for the Indian honesty – in short, believe Kipling's “Kim.”

Then I got to experience the train-station chaos first-hand. A genuinely trippy experience, no pun. Though, then another angel has rescued me from the whirlwind [when I was told univocally that no AC tickets were to be had there and only a “general” 14 hour train to New Delhi was available]. The angel has led me to a little travel agency that gets the 1st and 2nd class air-conditioned tix on the black market and sells them – even on the last day! So, I had my evening AC express ticket in hand after all – truly magic, by the Indian standard [considering that this train class books months in advance]. Now it's just a matter of getting to Dharamsala in time for my yoga class [May 14th]. It shall be so, I sense.

Now catching a little break before the train on a cool [!] shady Arabic-style balcony of a little hotel that didn't mind me playing with the computer on their property. The hustle-bustle of the train station is below me. When I'm not down there in the heat, it's rhythm is fascinating. The many random cows wandering and laying on the streats, the colourful semi-naked rickshaws carrying their human cargo...everyone going in their own direction at their own pace. The overall pattern reminds me of a strange foxtrot-paced dance choreographed by the invisible puppeteer....

Finally getting to distill some thoughts. During the trek and in the past Nepal month, I've been mostly making voice notes so that I could later reconstruct the experience in writing...or at least a vague facsimile of the experience.


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