Day 7

Today was supposed to be easy.

Today was supposed to go off without a hitch.

Today was, to put it mildly... an adventure.

We had a long night last night. All we had to do was come back to the hostel, sleep, take showers, and relax for the rest of the day until an air conditioned cab took us to the train station.

But of course, if something is supposed to go right , everything in the world can and will go wrong.

We left for the train station an hour early. Our tickets were printed out and with the train station being only half an hour away we figured we would have plenty of time to find our train and board.

Hundreds upon hundreds of people were milling around, covering the stairs leading to the station, inside the station, sleeping, standing, in groups sitting on the ground, and pushed up against the walls. If you had asked either Allie or me to navigate our way through the congestion a week earlier, we probably would have dropped our jaws and ran in the opposite direction. But this day, we breezed right on through like Delhi natives, two backpacks, three purses, and five pieces of luggage between all three of us, not even breaking a sweat. People stared, but I almost gave no notice and I thought to myself, "hey, this isn't so bad."

Unfortunately, that confident feeling lasted about a minute.

I first noticed something was off when the digital display didn't have our train number listed. It was one of those obvious things you look back on later and think, "damn it, maybe I shouldn't have brushed that off".

But like any good conditioned American who is used to things being conducted in an orderly fashion, we searched in vain for an info desk, only to figure out that in India NOTHING is that simple. We finally asked a guard who spoke one word of Hindi, "wrong, wrong". Of course it took about five minutes and fifty people discussing the problem for them to finally tell us that we were at the wrong station.

Three little words pass through all our heads at the same time…"FML"

Back we ran through the crowd, pulling our luggage behind us, weaving in and out of the people, and crossing the street without even looking for oncoming cars. One taxi hailed us, but it took another long discussion between him and six other Indian men to decide that we could not all fit in his taxi.

Its five minutes to seven, and we have maybe twenty minutes before our train leaves.

We find the first guy who is willing to take all of us, throw all our luggage on top on the cab, not even bothering to tie it down. Of course the cab driver speaks no word of English, but somehow we have managed through a series of phone calls to tell him where we need to be. We pile into the back seat of his dusty old car and as we pull away from the station, we hear a "clunk, clunk". The engine of the car comes to a halt and the old man steps out of the cab and lifts up the hood.

Again, in unison…."FML"

After tinkering around with it for a while, the cab starts up again, and of course we are in the heart of Delhi where traffic is worst. An ambulance came by at one point, sirens blazing… and it couldn't even get through the mess. Aside from that, we had to keep checking the top of the cap to make sure our luggage was still there.

"FML"

We pull out onto a street that is less busy, and we're trying to keep positive. We still got about five minutes. The train could be late…

Then the driver pulls into a gas station… a busy gas station… a SHADY busy gas station….AND has to beg for money to fill up his tank. We are asked to step out of the car and with people staring and all of us ready to pounce through the window the second he takes off with all our shit, we think all together…. FUCK OUR LIVES!!!!

Why does everything here have to be SO confusing

As Allie so brilliantly stated today, "Fuck, even taking a piss is confusing"

But wait… the day was not over yet… we had checked out of our hostel, had no place to stay for the night, our phone was slowly running out of minutes, we were hot, sweaty, hadn't eaten in hours, had no water, our driver couldn't understand a word we said, and we had no IDEA in Delhi where we were.

Giving up on the train, we decided we first needed a place to go for the night. The only person we knew who was available was on his way to a dinner party, but we were fortunately able to get ahold of him by calling him and hanging up, so that he would see he had a missed call, call us back, and we wouldn't have to use our minutes. Our friend, Rishab, coordinated with the cab driver to take us to a well-known market where Rishab's driver would pick us up. But of course, the old cab driver had no idea where the market was and had to pull over every block to ask someone on the street.

When we finally arrived at the market, which was by now completely dark, we had to wait with the cab driver on the streets until Rishab's driver could show up….Again I was amazed at how acclimated Allie and I had become to be able to go through this ordeal and be able to stand outside in the dark without being scared. Another half an hour later, and one very annoying kid who mimicked everything Allie said, Rishab arrived.

When we got back to Rishab's house and unloaded all our luggage again, we ordered take out, passed out, woke up, ate the spiciest food I have ever had in my life, and passed out again.

The only bit of comfort we had the whole night was that we were better off than the burn victim beggar we saw on the streets with gangrene all over his arm.

The funny thing was that before all this started, when we were on our way to what we would soon find out to be the wrong train station, we were discussing how much we were gonna miss Delhi, how much we wished we could stay another night, and how beautiful Delhi looked.

Well I guess wishes do come true… and Delhi never looked as ugly to me as it did tonight. .