Last bus ride in India. At least that's what I kept telling myself as we were stuck in traffic jams in sweltering heat with sticky clothes and no wind and desperate thirst for mango juice! Katarina and I left after one last masala chai at the office to embark on the ten hour bus ride to Delhi from Rishikesh. Walking through the streets filled with pilgrims and past the Ganges and corn being roasted and red and gold bracelets I felt excited and ready to move again. After two weeks of staying in one place the travel itch had begun. One last look at the Ganga river, an adios to all my ladies and we were off! I was a bit of a shit show though- let me just say. I was about to leave my little ashram apartment- I'm all packed up and ready to go, i lock my door but my keys drop to the floor. I bent over to pick them up RIIIIIIIIIIIPPPP. There busts a massive hole in the ass of my pants. Luckily I'm wearing a long dress like Indian top and so my lazy self doesn't have to unpack my entire bag looking for new unripped pants. This hole proceeds to get bigger and bigger throughout this day of travel- as I'm hopping onto moving buses RIPPP- to the point where I'm just hoping this flimsy fabric will stay on my body long enough to make it to Delhi. Then at a rest stop I was going to pay for using the bathroom and did a slide-trip-bif up to the table and came this close to bashing my forehead against it. WHEW. chill out Liz. And my crazy grown out buzz cut of hair is looking like I just got up from a nap.Eh. All the time.
But the bus ride was very nice all in all. One last day spent listening to music and musing about life and generally smiling at the things passing rapidly past the window.Rivers and swamps and rice fields. Desolate dusty paths and men sleeping on rocks. Forests littered with the bright confetti of strewn garbage and dotted with cows grazing. Saris draped over balconies like long KISS tongues after drinking pink or green or orange kool aid. Groups of men with tank tops pulled above their nipples exposing their proud bellies- which they scratch incessantly. Kids playing cricket in village squares. Groups of goats charging at the kids as they whack the ball around. A little boy in a puddle he created from a water pump who was laying on his back smiling with glee as he wriggled around shaking his butt back and forth cooling off. Men with their backs turned peeing towards towns or forests or walls. Fruit stand after fruit stand with ripe yellow and tiny green mangoes. Bundles of lychee akin to bouquets of bright red tea roses. Women. Children. Men. Staring.
Me staring back. And smiling, sometimes sadly, at what I'm seeing.
Men squatted with brushes painting ads on brick walls. Piles of rubber tires that stretch for miles and men in the heat breaking them down with hammers. Saris saris saris. Crazy chipmunks on billboards advertising theme parks. Bags of snacks and hair oil hanging in strips flapping in the wind at cigarette stands. Bollywood movie stars enjoying refreshing Pepsi or Coke. Riverbanks decorated with the whites of flying tank tops and bedsheets. Lazy, fat water buffaloes making the blubbery trek down to the river. Boyfriends on motorbikes with trim mustaches and plaid shirts like an Indian version of Brokeback Mountain. Boys splashing in rivers in their undies. I smiled and ate cool cucumber spiced with masala and salt and ice cream which melted in milliseconds. The wind blew and dirt and whatever else settles in a film all over my body. And finally Delhi.
When we arrived it looked like the apocalypse. 6pm but still like a 45c and the sun was beaming orange in the polluted sky over the slums of outer Delhi. It began to rain as we hopped in the rickshaw- not too much rain but enough to cool it down and then create more pish to walk through in Pajar Gang.
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