Didn’t your mama ever tell you not to talk
to strangers? Didn’t she also tell you to never get in the back of a strangers
van? During our lifetimes we end up doing lots of things our mamas tell us not
to do. Intentionally or not, it’s part of life, and learning. What will really
happen if I go against a certain piece of advice or break a certain rule? Half
the time we do it out of curiosity, the other half out of pure stubbornness.
Think about how many times someone told you something was hot and not to touch
it yet you touched it anyway because for some reason we don’t believe its hot
until we get burned.
A common theme of our travels has been to
not listen so much to what other people say we can, and more so can’t do in India. Perhaps it sounds ignorant, naive, just plain
stupid, crazy, or all of the above, and for any other person it just might be.
Perhaps it’s just asking to get “burned” so to speak. For us, this rule of not
listening so much to what we can’t
do has treated us very well, resulting not in hot burns but rather cool
experiences. We learned early on that
people are very quick to tell you that you can’t
do something when they themselves haven’t even done it. Now, these neigh Sayers
all have good intentions and are usually just looking out for our safety but
there are some things you simply have to experience
for yourself to truly learn.
Whenever presenting this idea to any of our
new Indian friends they were very quick to say we couldn’t do that. No
disrespect to them, but how could they know if they themselves had yet to try?
These neigh-sayers had all positive
intentions but had never hitchhiked in their own country, only going off of
prejudices and preconceived notions.
When I think about it, I’ve never hitchhiked in my own country for the
some of the same reasons as well as other technical reasons but that’s a
different story.
Taking a calculated risk, following strong
gut feelings and that natural curiosity and stubbornness to prove the neigh-sayers
wrong, we gave Indian hitchhiking a try within our second week in the
country. Sure enough, we caught a ride
in the back of a little vegetable truck down a mountain from Kodaikanal within
a few minutes of sticking out our thumbs and flashing some cheesy smiles.
The rest is history.
Hitchhiking has become one of my favorite
parts of traveling. As they say, its
not so much about the destination and more so the journey. Hitchhiking through
India makes it a hell of a fun journey.
It’s comparable to fishing. Some days you get a lot of bites some days not so
much. Some places and times are better than others. Sometimes you get big ones,
sometimes-small ones, and occasionally you get that real special big catch. During our Himalayan hitch there were several
“mountable” catches but one big one that really stands out to us.
Day 10 of the Himalayan Hitch; we had had a
long day of hitching the day before, pitching our tent, boiling some potatoes
and onions over our little fire for dinner like real cowboys. We awoke in our undersized tent in a field on
the side of the highway near a city called Chittorgarh. Cold, halfway rested,
and eager to get back on the road we packed up quick and found a good hitchin’ spot
on the side of North Highway 58. The cars and trucks weren’t biting as much as
normal this morning. After 30 minutes or so of strange looks from passer byes
we got a bite, quickly reeling it in and trying to explain our situation.
One of the few phrases we know in Hindi is
“me heni dega” Which roughly translates to “I don’t have money, or I can’t pay.”
I’m
not entirely sure.
The ride we had reeled in was a plain white
van with no windows in the back and the front seats full. It was one of those rides where our trusty
gut feelings made us hesitant.
“Should we get in the back of this
strangers van?”
Everything I’d been taught about strangers
in elementary school screamed NOO! Everything I’d learned in India quickly smothered
those screams and after double-checking that we wouldn’t be expected to pay we
got in the back of that plain white windowless van. Iron bars separated us from the cab where the
driver and an Indian man and woman (also catching a ride) sat. There were three other Indians in the back of
the van. There were two men wrapped up in shawls sitting on cardboard and
another person asleep under a blanket that we assumed was a woman. We shut the door behind us; relieved to see
it could be opened from the inside (just in case), and were on our way with
ride number one of day 10. The two men in the back with us greeted us with
smiles.
“From?” one of them asked.
“America.” We answered.
“Name,
name?” they asked.
“Joe
and Mike.”
It was clear this was about the extent of
their English, and by now we were used to these types of interactions and
expected it to be an average ride.
Spotting Joe’s Ukulele in his pack, one of the men pointed and said “Guitar”.
“Ukulele!”
Joe corrected, and they repeated what he had said.
He played and sang a quick little song for
them. This happens often and helps the mood and awkward silences a lot. After
his song though the two men quickly got bored, cuddled up in their shawls and
laid down to nap on their cardboard mats.
It seemed like it was going to be a rather long boring ride, but it
would take us all the way to Jaipur where we were eager to link up with a couch
surfing host and sleep somewhere other than our cold tent. With no side windows
to take in any view we pulled out our books: Barefoot Soldier, and The
Biography of Jim Morrison. There we sat riding along, reading in the back
of a van as three Indians napped around us.
Typical day in India for us by now.
Taking a break from reading I noticed that
the person sleeping under the blanket in front of me who we assumed was a woman
was wearing an old pair of Vans skateboard shoes. Not the typical footwear of
Indians.
“Maybe its some hitchhiking skater kid” I
imagined. 
Keep in mind that this mystery person had
been asleep under their blanket in the back of the van since before we had even
hopped in.
A
few minutes later as I’m trying to figure out this mystery person, they emerge from
their slumber. An old, skinny, unshaven Indian man with a curling mustache pops
his head out from under his blanket. He looked at me with the most confused
look on his face. I waved and smiled. He took a long intensely confused look at
Joe, then back at me, then, with almost a shrug of a look, as if he was too
tired to figure out whom these new white strangers were, he snuggled up under
his blanket and fell back asleep.
Joe hadn’t even noticed.
I
smiled big.
Just
that little event alone made that ride a good one, well worth it.
Yet
another little story to laugh about later on.
A little later, with our noses in our books
the napping men arose from their slumber one after another. When the mystery man awoke again, he looked
at us and quickly turned to his friends to ask what I assume was something like
“Who the heck are these guys, and when did they get here? Have I been out that
long?”
His friends laughed and gave him an answer.
He seemed satisfied with their response and lit a beady (little brown Indian
cigs). One of the other men did the same.
We intrigued them.
We put down our books as they attempted to
engage in somewhat of a conversation with the little English they knew. They
tried to talk to us in Hindi for a little bit, which we always find amusing
because they go on talking as if we know what they’re saying and we just smile
and shake our heads.
When they stop talking we just say “Hindi
neigh” meaning we don’t speak Hindi.
They say “Ahhh ingle, ingle ohhh.”
We
then share the few Hindi phrases we know including a couple curse words our
Indian college friends in Bangalore taught us. The men laughed hysterically
when they figured out the butchered phrase we had attempted to say. For some
reason it’s really funny to hear foreigners say curse words in a language not
native to them.
It’s that natural silliness of people that
I love, and Indians can be real silly, in a good way.
The
next hour or so basically consisted of Joe taking on the role of English
teacher.
They’d point to an article of clothing or our
backpacks or something, Joe would say what it was in English, they’d repeat it,
he’d correct them if they mispronounced it, they’d say it until Joe said good
then onto the next article of clothing.
Joe pointed to his sock. “Sock “ he said in
a teacher like manner.
“Suck” they said back.
“No, sOck”” he corrected.
“Soak!”
Close enough.
The mini lesson went on, going through all
our articles of clothing, and moving on to parts of the face and so on.
Joe should have had a little white board
and pointer stick to help our Indian friends who sat attentively, eager to
learn, occasionally taking long drawls on their beadies.
The van came to a quick stop.
“Ah this is the part where things go south.”
Nope, just a chai stop.
When riding in India chai breaks are
frequent. We rarely ride for more than two consecutive hours without our driver
pulling over for a chai break. They absolutely love their sweet boiled milk,
extra sugar version of chai tea.
Our new friends bought us chai and
crackers. We soon realized that they were all under the impression that we had
no money at all. It was too difficult to
try to explain our challenge and budget so we gratefully accepted their
generosity and made mental notes to pay it forward double fold.
We all piled back into the van. Our friends
had bought a little Indian trail mix accompanied with two little bottles of
what we assumed to be the “local liquor” topped with red caps and labels
slapped on crooked with Hindi text.
They offered us some of the trail mix and
the hand sanitizer smelling spirit.
Being that I’m under 21 I declined of course.
Joe,
being of age accepted a small bit mixed with water.
Another thing I love about Indians is their
willingness to share.
They are very quick to offer whatever they
are eating (or smoking or drinking) no matter how big or small the quantity. I wouldn’t be surprised to be offered a couple
chews of some guy’s gum or a bite of a half eaten samosa.
The
local spirit must’ve been rather potent, as our friends seemed to get a little
loose from the small bottles as they chain-smoked their little beadies.
We continued with some more English lessons,
and had quite a merry time with lots of laughs at each others foreign antics.
They wouldn’t let us film but the vans
wearing old man really wanted his photo taken.
He sat up straight, fixing his gray hair, eyebrows, and spent extra time
making sure his mustache was curled just right. Joe pleased the old man by
taking several pictures.
If
we had a dollar for each time an Indian guy asked to be photographed we’d be
able to travel for another year.
Unfortunately our new friends stop came up
soon. Still under the impression that we
had no money, one of the men even gave us twenty rupees insisting we accept it
for the next chai break. This man obviously wasn’t too well off as he was
hitchhiking a ride in the back of a van just as we were but without hesitation
sacrificed from what little he had to ensure we could have chai. We tried to
give it to the driver as a tip but he wouldn’t accept it, and wouldn’t let us
pay for the next chai stop with it either, buying us yet another cup of chai
and a delicious pastry snack.
The rest of the ride was relaxing, we even
got upgraded to sit in the front where we could finally take in the views as
another Indian man took our place in the back, just as intrigued with us as our
friends before.
At
one point as we neared Jaipur we even got pulled over randomly by a police
officer. The officer took the keys out of the ignition and made our driver get out
to show all his papers and registration and what not.
“Perhaps, we’re unknowingly participating
in a large scale drug smuggling operation. That would explain the van. Nahhh”
Our
driver didn’t get arrested and we continued on our way.
Our ride in the plain white van lasted
nearly 6 hours in total and took us all the way to the “Pink City” of Jaipur.
Our driver even made the extra effort to pull over to the side and point us in
the right direction, once again refusing the twenty rupees we had received from
our friend.
We shook hands, showing much gratitude and
headed into Jaipur.
We
were fortunate enough to spend a few days in Jaipur with a couple most generous
couch surfing hosts. We also were coincidentally there for what must be one of the
worlds largest kite festivals.
Man, they are so serious about kites there.
Thousands of kites flew over The Pink City for
the kite festival. Joe and I got to fly
a kite for maybe a combined 10 seconds. We’d get to hold the string for a
couple seconds at a time before our young Indian friends would take the string
back in fear that we’d lose or damage their kite.
What an amazing experience, yet another
story in itself.
Now everybody go out to the closest highway
and hop into the back of the first van that pulls over for you and hope for a
similar experience! Best of luck, and I hold no responsibility if something bad happens. In all seriousness though,
had we listened to all the people telling us what we can’t do we would never have had that memorable ride in the back of
that van, we would never had hitchhiked, our journey would not have been nearly
as exciting, and we wouldn’t have experienced so much generosity. By taking
calculated risks, following our gut, ignoring what the neigh-sayers say we can’t do, we instead experienced
something that we certainly can do.
We learned from our own experience and were fortunate enough for it to result in
many very positive results. If we always listen and accept what we can’t do we will never know the extent
to all the amazing things that we indeed can
do!
As the fake Nikes with the crooked swooshes
sold on the streets of India say, Just
Doit!
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