I was a bit better organised at this stage, and as I could not afford to have any of my precious rupees taken, so I carried all of my rupees on my person in a small shoulder bag. As we filed into line to be searched, (this would be a very thorough search, impossible to get through), I managed to choose my moment, split-second timing was required, and escaped unnoticed into the bureau d'exchange and cashed a five-dollar travellers cheque. I got a ridiculously low official rate for my five dollars, but I dragged the actual exchange out as long as possible, as it was crucial to my master plan. After this process, I spotted that the passengers, who had already been searched, were standing outside the bus. So I walked over to join them, shaking like a leaf, but luckily I remained unobserved. I was shivering in my shoes even though the climate was markedly warmer. I had made it. I had succeeded over this last difficult hurdle. I was in India after all these trials and tribulations.
All these last, horrendous weeks, flew from my mind, when I passed through that customs post. The sun shone warmer and brighter, colours were sharper, the birds sang sweeter and I found a smile on my lips and I tear in my eye.
When we reached the first town in India, Amritsar, (the Sikh capital) we ate well, in good, cheap restaurants and could stay in a hotel, if we so desired. I chose to spend, what was to be our last night together as a group, on the bus. We reached our destination, exactly on schedule, after five long weeks and entered Delhi on Saturday 22nd December. The parting of the ways was not easy at all. After all we had been cooped up together for five weeks and 6,000 miles, and yet here we were stranded alone in a strange country. Now we had to think and fend for ourselves. As we started to slowly depart from the buses, you could cut the silence with a knife. Even though some of us were not the best of friends, we all sort of depended upon one another, and we were a comfort to one another through all our difficulties.
It was as if we had been dropped into a vacuum. It was something of a shock trying to decide what to do, where to go, who to go along with, etc.. Although we had been making plans along the way, when we had to put these plans into operation, we felt a little lethargic. Perhaps we were all so tired after completing such a hazardous journey. It was like attending a funeral, and there was a gap there as if someone had just died. Maybe we were just surprised that after all we had been through, that we had survived. We were lost sheep, looking for the flock, the pen or the shepherd. No one said goodbye when we finally alighted from the vehicles, but all the passengers drifted off the bus, split into two loose groups and stepped into the two nearby hotels.
I stayed at the Kesri Hotel, near the bazaar, with many of my companions off the bus and we cut costs by sharing a huge dormitory. The cohesiveness of the group had obviously been enhanced, by five weeks eating, sleeping and being ill together. One tends to build up strong attachments under such circumstances.
I was stunned to hear that the Indians, who slept on the pavement every day of their
No comments:
Post a Comment