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November
7, 1999
It's Monday
and this is Todd Borgie. Today we traveled from Banbasa, India to Dehli, India.
As you all
have heard, we went for broke, and broke. We officially slept in
no-mans-land. Technically we were neither in Nepal nor India, but in the
space between the two places. As we had felt trapped the night before we
were eager to get out of this cage, however we were helpless we needed
the help of the Indian officials, we needed their stamp of approval both
on our carnets and in our passports. As these were festival days we just
had to take what we were given in terms of service.
The Rovers
were parked as close to the gate as they could be. Maybe we thought that
if we looked eager enough that some border guard would feel sorry for us
and open the gate across the dam. Pedestrian crossing began early in the
morning, but the vehicle gates did not open for us.
We all got
up, as the pedestrian traffic made it impossible for anyone to sleep. We
watched the people walking to and from Nepal and India. There seemed to
be a great diversity of people walking, riding and driving, bringing
their wares in and out of each country. Some of the carts were packed so
high with goods, that it was hard to believe these vehicles could hold
them. In fact there was a vehicle that collapsed under its load. In any
case it was wonderful seeing the human creativity in terms of their using
what that had to get a job done.
We were
uneventfully ushered through customs, a matter that took only moments to
complete, yet took hours of waiting for the proper officials to approve.
It seems sort of funny how society places all these imaginary lines
around the globe and in our own lives, allowing some people to pass and
deny the privilege to others. When crossing a border, it doesn't seem so
special. It seems like just another piece of real estate, a gradual
change if one is even noticed. Is this true for a prisoner leaving a jail
cell? Is that just another door? Or a child journeying across the border
between imagination and reality?
All of this
talk about boarders reminds me of a story. Our good friend Chris Hauk
teaches high school juniors. The other day he brought a new piece of
software into his classroom. It was a program that displays a series of
satellite pictures of the earth from space. It's a pretty impressive
program that uses real data captured by the shuttle and contains an
impressive zoom feature. He zoomed into North America and asked the kids
if they noticed anything different. They responded with shrugs and blank
stares and then he said, “take a closer look…no boarders.” Later he told
us, “…and you could see them one by one as they got it. Boarders are
something we have created to separate ourselves.”
Borders are
an interesting concept. Which ones are black and white and which ones are
an infinite shade of gray? Which lines do we respect and which ones don't
we? When have we crossed the line? And what is the line we have crossed?
What lines do we toe, and what is the line between good and evil? Good,
bad, black, white, male, female, human, animal, plant, warm, cold,
comfort, discomfort, clever, dumb moral, immoral? When should we invoke
the clear distinctions and when should we stop searching for them?
Looking to
our environment for answers to these questions, we find no solace or
solutions. Our own Mother Nature seems to mock us as we look for answers.
She riddles us with imperceptible changes within climes, between
generations, identical twins. Yet she boldly shows us great differences
where land abuts ocean and precipices fall into valleys.
The lines
we make shout at the poor, strengthen the righteous, and make our
decisions for us. We have rendered much power and control to lines, but
at what cost? And to what benefit?
In India,
Hindu society has laid out a culture of very clear distinctions, those
between castes. However, what are the true differences between actual
people? What are the actual acts that will elevate one to a higher caste
the next time round? Or lower another? What is the difference between a
white lie, and one of a different lineage? Why even give people a second
chance?
The
question still remains unchanged, do we rule the lines, or do they rule
us? Anyway, we finally drove over the bridge, which was gated off the
night before, and found ourselves officially in India. We made it through
the streets of Banbassa, without too much trouble and were on our way to
Delhi.
Our first
surprise came as we drove up a slightly inclined straight away. We saw a
troop, of what appeared to be furry hitchhikers. There were about two
dozen monkeys hanging in the trees and on the side of the road. As bad
tourists we coaxed them with biscuits and nuts. It was amazing. It is not
every day that you see monkeys cruising around without cages or leashes.
We probably spent a half an hour just hanging out and watching.
We were all
nervous about driving in India. We had all heard stories of fearless
drivers driving the streets with their pedals to the medal and no fear of
the after life. Also we had heard stories of people pretending to get hit
by your vehicle and demanding money as compensation. We were all a little
nervous and shy to say the least. Our first image of Indian driving
corroborated our story. We saw a large bus fish tailing down the road
straight for us. Both Rovers quickly darted out of the way, and we all
breathed a heavy sign of relief, but bit our lips, as perhaps this was a
foretaste of was yet to come.
India was
something else, driving there indeed proved to be difficult. Not only was
it on the opposite side of the road than we were used to, the difficulty
increased exponential with the wide variety of traffic that was on the
road. There were people, pigs, monkeys, mopeds, rickshaws, donkey carts,
people carts, motorcycles, cars, buses, tractors, and anything else that
you could image that could move. Everyone was sharing the minimal two
lanes and narrow shoulder (when it was present). This is not to mention
the large crowds of people in the streets. Doug recommends a serious diet
of Metallica and angst in order to get the right combination of guts,
prudence, aggressiveness, and other spices necessary to keep your wits
about you while driving in India.
We had a
couple of close scrapes that I am still not sure how we averted. There
are no physical laws in the universe to describe the how Doug was able to
maneuver Hercules (what looked like right through) but apparently around
a rogue pig that darted across the road. A hay cart was not so lucky as
it was forced off the road in a misaligned Alaska pass. However, that was
just par for the course, and no one was hurt.
Again Jeff
played the hero today. He was the only one that had the foresight to
change Nepali money into Indian Rupees before crossing the border. As
this was a festival day we were hard pressed to find anyplace that would
take either a credit card or Dollars in exchange for gasoline or food.
Jeff bought us the first India feast of the trip, which we had to keep at
a minimum lest we be forced to wash dishes.
We crossed
the Ganges, the sacred River of India. It was just a great feeling,
knowing that we were traveling over this river that had always seemed so
remote in those high school history classes.
As we
approached Delhi the highways became better and better. The two-lane
became a four-lane, which made it much easier to drive. However, now we
were faced with the challenge of how to Navigate in the Capital city of India
without a map. This is when the rally book was worth its weight in gold.
Both
vehicles had the rally books open as we followed them through the round
abouts, turns and crowded streets of New Delhi. It must of looked and
sounded comical as we counted off the turn offs as we went by them around
the round abouts. We pointed at landmarks the rally book mentioned and
ultimately arrived at the desired destination, the posh New Delhi hotel.
It was a
beautiful hotel, with manicured gardens and large flowing staircases.
Although the Rovers looked somewhat out of place, their history was their
pride, something that was unchallenged by any other vehicle in the lot;
after all we had just transversed the Himalayan mountain range.
After Nick
and Earle checked in, the crew unloaded the cars and cleaned up. The rest
of the night was devoted to Dawali. That's it for today so this is Todd
Borgie saying, Haste LaVista baby.
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