Tag Archives: India

Adopted By a Village

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“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”

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If it’s possible to be overwhelmed by hospitality and kindness, I have definitely found the village for it. Though I had only planned to stay one night, within an hour, the first lady to take me in made me promise I would stay at least a week, and, well, why not! Throughout my stay, she and others then tried to get me to stay for a month (and a year!), and finally after nearly two weeks, I managed to leave, but not without turning down countless offers, from just about everyone I met, to stay at their homes at least a few nights. People had heard I was staying in the area and were calling the two different families (related somehow, cousin of cousin or something) I stayed with everyday to invite me all over to their homes. I couldn’t even go for a walk without being invited into multiple people’s house for tea. The families I met first fought for me, turning down offers from others, and sharing me like a child with divorced parents. Since families here are so intertwined and enormous (they have “the uncle-of-my-sister’s-cousin’s-brother type of relationships), basically everyone I met in the village and surrounding area was somehow family.

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The Real India: 3985km

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“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.”

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Ladakh and Spiti aren’t really India. I mean sure, they are technically, but the people don’t look Indian, the culture and language is Tibetan, and it’s clean, cold, and deserted, words never associated with the rest of India. For the past week I have been in the real India though. The crazy, chaotic, busy India, filled with people, cows, and monkeys. An India, that, unfortunately, I wasn’t looking forward to cycling through. Though I will someday visit the rest of the country, it is not an endeavor I plan to undertake with my bike. That being said, my last few weeks have shown me that it’s the people, not only the climate or scenery, that makes travel what it is.

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Where to Poo

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“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”

That’s right, this post is all about toilets, or more accurately, the lack there of. India has a very large toilet problem, and it’s not just the homeless who have no where to go. In many of the small farming villages I have stayed in, where people live in nice clean houses, they have no facilities. One of the issues with this (besides sanitation) is in the dead of winter when there is three feet of snow and you have to walk ten minutes to the field everyone goes in. Sometimes in these villages there is one communal toilet, but other times there is no space (or they just haven’t gotten around to it). Cities are definitely the worst since they are so densely populated and there are many homeless and slums. Plus, there are no fields to go in. The stench in some areas is horrific after the sun has been warming up the streams of sewage all day.

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Monkey Business

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“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

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Like most children, I use to dream of having a monkey for a pet, so the idea of monkeys running around town thrilled me. After coming down from Ladakh where there were none, I was surprised and delighted to see them scampering on rooftops and riffling through the trash. Though I knew India was known for them, I really hadn’t expect them to be as prevalent as squirrels for me back home. I have been caught off guard on many occasions as I opened my door to find a monkey sitting nonchalantly on my patio or steps. I have also been frightened as they hiss at me when I walk by, or when I see a large obviously dominate male in my way on the road.

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Alone Time: 3862km

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“If you don’t like where you are, then change it. You are not a tree.”

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For the last few days (since my first home stay in Ki), I have been descending down, out of the mountainous region of Spiti, and into Kinnaur valley. Though the oxygen is richer and the descents have been fun, the road is now busy, dusty, and hot, an awful combination. Oftentimes when trucks pass I have to slow down since the dust makes it impossible to see, and difficult to breath. There is absolutely no flat ground (meaning no camping), and the villages are built hundreds of meters up from the road on the cliffs. It’s interesting to see how they are able to live perched in the side of the hill, and even have small farms beside their homes. Though at one point I was a mere 2km away from Tibet, there was no way to enter because of China’s unfortunate control and restrictions over the area.

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A Different Kind of Home: 3790km

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“Home is the place where it feels right to walk around without shoes.”

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Well, they say there is a first for everything, so here is mine for the day. Last night I slept on the side of the road in one of the construction slums, a place I had never previously dreamed of staying in. These groups of lopsided shacks are literally on the road (the road is just a bit wider to accommodate), and are found throughout areas where they are doing extensive road work. Though many of these communities are composed solely of men, in these parts, they include wives and children as well.

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The Ladies of Spiti: 3733km

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“Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says “oh crap, she’s up!”

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I hit a low point cycling yesterday as I had eaten too much sugar and not enough real food. I felt tired and slightly sick, and had no desire to go on. Lucky for me, my afternoon got a lot better once a few local ladies in a small village I was passing through invited me for chai, then to spend the night. The women were three sisters (late twenties/early thirties) who lived with their mom, and one of the women’s child, a seven year old boy. Their husbands were drivers, meaning they were normally on the road driving tourists all around northern India. They all had children as well, but besides the one boy left, the children were at private schools in other towns. Many of the children in the area are sponsored to attend these schools with a “hostel” attached, meaning the children live there, often times starting at the young age of six. The women and their mother tended to the house and animals, and also did construction for a road work project nearby, a job which is both strenuous and tedious. They were a lovely and hospitable family, and one of the women spoke decent English which made my life a bit easier.

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Monks and Children: 3635km

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“Be so happy than when others look at you, they become happy too.”

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I spent the morning with Tibetan Buddhist monks, and the afternoon with children, the perfect recipe for a great day. The village I have been staying in is a few kilometers away from one of the most iconic monasteries in the area. I got a tour of some of the inside temples, then sat down for breakfast with a few of the monks, and had tea throughout the morning with others. Since the tea culture is so prevalent here in India, and you could never say no to a glass, I must have had at least six or eight “chai” while I was there. At the end of my visit I ended up in a prayer room just as a few monks entered to pray (at least I assume that is what they were doing). They were chanting, playing different instruments, and occasionally doing odd things such as throwing rice and dripping water into a cup. Halfway through, one monk handed me a ritz cracker, and a few minutes later, another handed me five peanuts and a chocolate. Why they did this, I will never know. It was interesting to see that they weren’t the stoic monks I tend to picture. As they prayed, they checked their watch, picked their nose, and moved around quite a lot. I guess they are only human as well!

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