The Wild Wild...India!

Day 11 (1/11)

After a surprisingly good night of sleep we began to awaken…considering I wore all of my clothes to bed all I needed to do was brush my teeth, or more so the only thing I was willing to do in the boundaries of that bathroom besides hover above the toilet when absolutely necessary! At this point I felt like the only thing I had control over was the cleanliness of was the inside of my mouth so I took full advantage and brushed extra long! Our train left late that night so we needed to try and work a deal with the guesthouse to keep the room until 1030pm…we had set up a 1/2 day safari excursion the day before so we needed somewhere to keep our stuff. He gave us half off the room for the half day if I remember correctly and we headed back to Big Ben for a hearty breakfast before our big day of hopefully seeing some elephants in the wild! We had to be back to the travel place by 1 to meet the man who set up our day…and what a day it was! Once we arrived the man asked if we would be ok with riding on his motorcycle to the place that we would get picked up for the safari…as you may or may not know, it is very common for several people to pile on a motorcycle in India…Iv'e seen whole family's on one! I have been sort of fascinated by it in some strange way~it's like my way of looking at things is totally different from how I would view the same thing in the US. For example~ In India when I see an entire family on a motorcycle (from front to back…small child, dad driving, small child, mom sitting side saddle holding a tiny infant baby, and there's usually some bags thrown in there somewhere too!) I have caught myself saying: "How cute! look at the little baby!" Where as if I saw the same thing in the US I would say: "What the HELL are they thinking! Who in their right mind would put their entire family on a motorcycle with no helmets, no shoes, taking no precaution what so ever!" But it's like totally normal here…and what's even more strange is that it's becoming normal to me. One of my new favorite things to see is the Indian women wrapped up in their beautiful sari's sitting side saddle on the back of a motorcycle or driving a scooter:) So anyway…Brenden and I (sitting side saddle of course, wishing I was wearing a sari) piled onto this mans motorcycle for our first time in India~sorry Dad but I was not wearing a helmet…miss you XOXO. As we weaved through the organized chaos of the Haridwar streets it was so exhilarating, feeling the wind blowing through my hair and feeling somehow safe. Many times through out my trip so far I have thought how wonderful it would be to have my beautiful friend Reg here with me…not just to have her with me because she is amazing, but to photograph my experience here in India. And this was defiantly one of those moments! To have a picture of myself on the back of that motorcycle somehow capturing exactly how I was feeing in that moment (which Reg is so amazing at doing) would be so awesome.

Giant statue near the bridge

My first Indian motorcycle!

When we arrived at the bridge where another guy picked us up on another motorcycle our first driver said we would get dropped off around that area and could take the walking bridge across to town near the ghat…so we went for a short ride on the second motorcycle where we got picked up by a jeep and taken to the Rajaji National Park. We were a bit early so we hung out in the sunshine, had some chai, and I did a bit of yoga in the shade just to stretch my body:) 

So comfortable! Both of us wanted one.

Just kickin back:)

Nice smile;)

Miss you Ryker and Blake...I take you with me everywhere I go. Love you...Muah!

I was time to go so we got in the jeep with our 2 guides and set off into the wilderness!

It was a very bumpy ride and so much fun:) It was just neat to be there, in the wild of India with both eyes wide open anxious to see some wild animals. And we did…deer and elk…the guides didn't know much english but they did know: "Bambi!"…fawn, birds, monkeys, wild boar… After some time we both mentioned to each other how badly we wanted to see some/an elephant…so we thought…what has worked everytime we needed/wanted something? Chanting! So we started chanting a Ganesh mantra (Ganesh is the elephant headed god remover of obstacles) Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha.And guess what? It worked!!!:) Soon after we started chanting we saw a mama elephant with her 2 babies! It was so exciting I could hardly believe it! What a wonderful experience. After we watched them for awhile one of the babies became very curious and started running toward our jeep…I tried to catch it on video~so fantastic!

cool trail:)

his smile says it all!

Once we got dropped off near the bridge we started walking towards the walking bridge we were told to take back to town…but when we got there it was closed. The man sitting in the booth didn't know english and just kept pointing in a certain direction…so we started walking that way with no idea where we were going. As we were crossing another bridge Brenden noticed that over the stone wall there was a pathway that looked like it went towards the Ganges…so we jumped the wall and got down the dirt hill through some trees and found ourselves in a small slum with makeshift huts made out of plastic tarps and plywood, a little community tucked back behind the seances with its own tiny little bazaar and everything! It was really cool to walk through and to have the opportunity to say Namaste with a smile to all the people we passed along the way. We went back through the Ganga Aarti and to the guest house to get our stuff packed up before we went to dinner at yes you guessed it…Big Ben. We were still very unsure about eating outside of what was recommended as safe for foreigners by our India travel books so we just stuck to the one place that was suggested for Haridwar. Soon after it was time to head to the station to catch our first train in India! The station wasn't far from where we were so we left a little after 10pm, the train left 11:45pm so we wanted to have plenty of time to figure out the train system and be sure to find our train in time. As we headed out into the street to catch a tuk tuk the streets were empty! We had a moment of panic…would we be able to find it on our own and would we get there in time on foot?! We started walking…and then some god sent us a rickshaw (bicycle taxi)! Hooray!…the man was so strong to peddle me and Brenden plus all of our stuff! He was like pure muscle.

I took a deep breath before entering the train station. The last time we did this it did not go very well…at least this time we already had tickets. Now we just have to figure out where our train is…nothing is in English so its like a wild goose chase! We find a bench and unload our stuff…Brenden volunteered me to go out and start asking around while he stayed with our bags~which was fine with me:) So I headed to what appeared to be a police stand and asked them what platform this train would be on…handing them my ticket. They pointed down~back towards Brenden…I asked if it was the empty track that was right in front of us and they made the same motion talking in Hindi. Okaaaay… I walk back to Brenden…we keep waiting for the signs in front of the track that was empty to change to our train number…watching the time as I continue to ask random people what platform and continue to get really blurry answers mostly in Hindi. Ok. time is starting to run out and we still don't know if we are in the right place~Wait! Theres a very tall white man with a bright red coat on, he must know english! I wave and say hello~he walks right passed me:( OK maybe not. A few more minutes pass…ooh~there's a young indian girl…she probably knows English! Hooray she does! She walks me down a ways and points to a sign showing the direction that platform 8 can be found…8 she tells me~platform 8. THANK YOU SO MUCH! We have like no time to get to where our train is now…we have been sitting in the main building and platform 8 is in the next building over! I run back to Brenden and we strap our bags on super fast and start running! We see our train~ok its still here but now we have to find our car B2 We had to run practically the whole length of the train…and it was a long one! There's B2! We literally jump onto the train as it begins to move. Whoa…that was too close! But we made it! Yippee!!!! We walk down the isle to find our seats~its a sleeper train. We find our seats and guess who's on the top bunk propped up on his arm talking to one of our other bunk mates? The very tall white man that was wearing the red coat! He says…"Cutting it a little close aren't you?" All I could do was laugh! I told him of how I had attempted to ask him for help and we all had a good laugh about it. Our new room mates for the next 11 hours or so were very nice and helped us find our sheets pillows and blankets so we could get settled in for our first nights sleep on a train. Everyone else had obviously been there awhile and most of the train seemed to already be sleeping so we both got into our little bunks and prepared for rest. I read for a while with my head lamp and then passed out for the night.