Lucky Day Number Seven of the Himalayan Hitch

Lucky Number seven. I don’t consider myself extremely superstitious but Day number seven of our Himalayan Hitch felt like a hell of a lucky day or one of extremely good fortune, karma, or blessings. Whatever it was it really embodied much of which our whole Himalayan Hitch was about: an experiment in human kindness.

           

By Day seven we had gotten into the groove of things with our budget. We knew how much we could afford, what would give us the most “bang for our rupee”, and we had really honed in on our Hitch Hiking skills, sometimes able to hail a ride just through sheer eye contact. The day before we had successfully hitched out of Mumbai, hitching much later than usual.

Walking through a high-way-town we stopped for a small glass of perhaps our favorite thing in India: Sugar cane juice.  As we waited for our juice to be squeezed, a guy at a nearby butcher stand was slicing the necks of squawking chickens, casually tossing them in a crate for them to bleed out to later be prepared to eat. He smiled as he continued to stare at us, talking to his friend, most likely commenting on Joe’s beautiful blonde locks. We drank our subpar yet still delicious sugarcane and went on our way. 

           

I saw a young boy no more than four years young slowly reach out and touch Joe’s arm with one little finger as we walked by. The look on his face said that it was the first time he had ever touched a white person.

Only in India.

Later that night we caught a ride with a trucker who said little to nothing, only smiled. We spent our remaining rupees on a modest dinner and the trucker sat nearby. It was late and we decided to bed down for the night. As we went to leave we had to politely but firmly decline our truckers persistent offers for us to sleep in the cab of his truck with him. I’m sure he meant well but we’d rather be on our own. We camped in our tent for the first time in a field on the side of the highway.

           

We woke up on Lucky Day Seven to realize the field we had camped in was right next to somebody’s little house. A family sat and stared at the strange white men emerging from their undersized orange tent. We smiled and waved. The family and their goats just stared as we quickly packed up and hit the road quickly hailing a ride in a sleek Mercedes.

             

We caught a couple different rides that morning but nothing too eventful. The luck really started happening around 11:00 a.m. when we reeled in a gold minivan driven by an older to middle aged man, gray bearded, tall and slightly heavy. He rolled down the window. Prepared with hand gestures, slow English, and our best pronunciation of the next town we wanted to go, we were expecting the driver to know little to no English. The biggest sigh of relief came over us as the driver spoke perfect English.

“Where are you trying to go?”

We told him Ahmedabad. He was going to a town a little ways before that and without hesitation he said we could ride with him. Joe took shotgun, naturally, and I took the back.

One of the biggest struggles with hitchhiking in India is the language barrier. Trying to tell drivers where we’re trying to go, that we cant pay, and trying to even to start to explain our challenge was exhausting and at times, pointless.

           

Our new friend introduced himself as Muhammad. The feeling of relief and relaxation of riding with a fluent English speaking person was unbelievable.  Muhammad could best be described as a big guy who was really kind and soft on the inside.  Our ride was smooth and enjoyable. Muhammad told us about how he had worked in Europe but was from India. We told him about our challenge. It would prove to be the only time we could fully explain our challenge with our ride fully comprehending it. We chatted it up with Muhammad as we rode, talking about how we had made it to where he picked us up by hitchhiking and strangers’ generosity.

More often than not when telling other Indians how we hitchhiked, riding with truckers and total strangers, they’ll almost scold us saying we shouldn’t do that.

There are so many bad people out there.

We could get robbed

or hurt

or killed

 or on and on with the pessimism.

The thing is, we have yet to have any trouble with these “bad people” who are supposedly so common. Either we just got extremely lucky, coincidentally missing the “bad people” and only somehow exclusively interacting with good people

OR

Maybe, just maybe, the world’s not so bad after all.

Muhammad was the first Indian to really agree with us on these views. Speaking with a sense of pride in his country he explained how India is much safer than people think. Like too many countries, places and people, India gets a bad rap sometimes.  He agreed with what we were doing and didn’t say anything about how we could get hurt, instead talking about how there really are so many good people.

He even got so into the topic at one point that he reached for his glove box.

 “Is he about to pull out a glock?”

No that wouldn’t make sense with the conversation we were having.

Instead, he pulled out a big wad of Indian cash.

Just as gangster.

He explained how he could walk around with that, no problem, saying how he didn’t have to worry about it getting stolen or getting robbed or anything like that. A bit of an extreme but the message was received.  It felt so good for an Indian to agree with us, knowing there’s a lot more good in this world than people think.  

The conversation progressed to other things, including Muhammad explaining that the big wad of cash was because he was going to buy something nice for his wife.

A little after noon, Muhammad pulled over at a roadside restaurant and bought us lunch and tea. What a blessing. Free meals are always good, but they were especially appreciated during our challenge when our meals were often shared and not very often could we afford three full meals a day. We had eaten a small breakfast, now a nice free lunch, and we would still be in budget for a light dinner.

Just a couple hours before, we didn’t know Muhammad. We were complete strangers yet he saw we were in need and helped us out. Muhammad went above and beyond to feed us, and even shared our views on the true goodness of the people of India and the world in general.

After our lunch Muhammad drove us another 30 minutes further. We gave him much thanks, a hug, and a handshake and went our separate ways smiling.

We were hailing our rides quick and easy that day.

After Muhammad we hailed a ride in a big truck with a smiley Indian trucker who spoke zero English but he sure did smile. 

After the trucker we caught a nearly four-hour ride in the back of a pick up.  This ride was fun especially because there were other Indians riding in the back with us. They’d ride for a bit until their stop then some new ones would get in, all curious about the two white guys just casually riding in the back of this truck with them.

 After the pickup we caught a ride in a car with two young guys somewhere around our age.  They spoke a little English, played some surprisingly bumpin’ good Hindi tunes, and drove fast, weaving around trucks and other cars, and even driving on the shoulder for a good portion of our ride. The guy in the passenger seat who wasn’t much older than me had said that he worked for the highway engineering or something, and validated himself when they got through the “VIP” lane of the tollbooth by flashing some papers.

Their stop was just before the town we were trying to get to, Ahmedabad. They had already given us a ride yet went even farther out of their way to get us a ride the rest of the way. Possibly using his authority as a mysterious highway engineer, one of the guys quickly flagged down a truck, which happened to be going to the city we were trying to get to. We said much thanks and were once again on our way.

We had an enjoyable ride in the back of the truck watching the sunset as Joe played his ukulele. We arrived in Ahmedabad around 8:30 p.m., a little tired but spirits still high after our ride with Muhammad. We had gotten 6 rides that day, slightly above average

We walked into the nearest restaurant, a little place with an open kitchen and faded green, grease stained walls.

Udupi’s

We checked out the menu. We were delighted to see that we could afford to buy the 60 rupee Thali meal to share. We checked the price and the woman managing the restaurant where we were the only customers said that was the old price and the new price was 70 rupees. We could afford it but it would clean us out for the day. We ordered it and sat rehydrating on the free water as a young Indian kid and a young Nepali kid prepared our modest meal. At first they brought us each a meal but we had to regretfully decline and split  just the one we could afford.  We began to split and eat our little delicious meal served on a metal lunch tray.

We’re not sure exactly what happened within the next few minutes, but we’re convinced some sort of  wave of good luck had been cast over us. We had already gotten a free meal earlier in the day, but we didn’t think our luck would extend past that.

But sure enough, it extended, far past that.  

Not 10 minutes earlier we were having to dispute a difference of 10 rupees on the cost of our meal with the women who ran the restaurant and next thing we know the same woman comes over with the extra meal we had to decline and gives it to us. We had to double, even triple check that she was giving it to us for free.  She assured us it was free, and that we are her guests, and that we didn’t have to pay for anything.

But wait, there’s more!

As we polish off the second meal she brings out a big dosa (basically a big crepe typed thing stuffed with potato and served with spicy sauce) insisting that we have it for free. We of course wouldn’t decline free food, and gratefully accepted it, still in awe at what was happening.  We’re finishing off the first dosa and the lady- who I unfortunately can’t recall the name of do in part to its difficulty to pronounce- offers to give us another dosa. We accept. As we’re eating the second dosa, thinking that there was no way anything could top this, our most generous hostess comes with two glasses of fresh cold sugar cane juice.

Our absolute favorite!

We were in heaven, bellies full of our favorite things, and still almost in a state of shock trying to figure out why and how all this generosity had been blessed upon us.

After our completely free feast of a meal, we sat in the restaurant to charge the camera battery and figure out where we could pitch our tent for the night. The next hour or so was spent befriending and more or less bonding with the lady and the two young guys working there. Joe played his ukulele and sang. This delighted them. When they saw Joe’s computer they asked to see “American pictures”. Joe had none, so his Australia pictures would have to do. They loved all of it. We had just been given a feast for free, and we were having a good time with our new friends as the new kings of Ahmedabad but we knew our reign would soon have to end as we’d have to find a place to pitch our Scout Jr. Tent.

As if the woman was reading our minds, she came over and asked where we were staying. We said we’d be camping in our tent somewhere.

 “You can stay here.” The woman quickly stated without hesitation.

 “ We can stay right here in the restaurant?” We asked smiling ear to ear. 

She then explained that we could pitch our tent across the street on top of the other restaurant that her husband owned.

We had been given rides all day, a free lunch, a feast for dinner complete with our favorite juice, and now our problem as to where we would rest our weary heads was solved.  

We sat a little longer in the restaurant journaling; high on the generosity we had been nearly overloaded with. I had never experienced so many acts of pure kindness in such a short period of time.

As the restaurant began to close around 9:30 we were led across the street to the other livelier, nicer restaurant where we sat waiting to be told where to go with our bags and trusty tent.

As we were sitting there a man who may have been the woman’s husband or just a random guy, offered us Manchurian. Not sure what it was, if it was free, and already pretty full, we politely declined, but the man insisted and within a few minutes a dish of veg Manchurian was placed in front of each of us along with a fresh bottle of 7-Up, complete with a bendy straw.

We quickly discovered it to be one of our new favorite foods, gobbling it up within a few short minutes. 

It was like we were the newly arrived kings of Ahmedabad and everyone was eager to offer us something.

As we sat stuffed and in our food comas we quickly learned our king status went beyond free food and onto celebrity photos. The same guy that had given us the Manchurian came around us with a group of people and a young girl explaining that it was her birthday and to wish her happy birthday. We gladly wished her Happy Birthday and both had to take several photos shaking the girls hand.

The type of photos you’d take with the president.

Completely stuffed, still in shock, we were led up a spiral staircase to the roof of the restaurant where we could pitch our tent. The woman even came up to say goodnight to us and let us know that we could come back to her restaurant in the morning for free breakfast.

We said goodnight, gave much thanks to all our new friends and all those of our new city and slept like babies, on the roof amongst our people.

We had awoke that morning in a field on the side of the highway with hungry bellies and not a single idea of how much or how little we’d get to eat that day. We didn’t know where we’d bee sleeping, or what city we’d end up in that night.

We certainly didn’t know Muhammad.

And, I still can’t even pronounce Ahmedabad correctly.

Yet, thanks to the kind and generous hearts of complete strangers of India we were given six free rides, two free meals, one of which was a feast including our favorite drink, and a safe place to spend the night.

I had originally dubbed this day, Lucky Day Number Seven, yet as I conclude this story, I am led to go against my Irish beliefs and accept that this day had nothing to do with luck.

Rather, Day Seven of The Himalayan Hitch, intended to be an experiment, testing the depths of human kindness, was simply an experience, accepting the truth of human nature.