Surviving my first trip

This weekend, I prayed for my life, got yelled at by a cop with an AK-47, and had sweets stolen by a monkey.

It all started when I decided I wanted to visit Ayodhya, a spiritual town known as being the birthplace of Lord Rama, one of the incarnations of the Hindu God Vishnu.  Ayodhya is about a 3-4 hour drive from my current location of Lucknow, so I decided to take a bus there.  When I got to the bus station, there was a guy offering to take people in his van for 80 Rupees, only 6 Rupees (12 cents) more than the bus.  I figured “Great! This is pretty much the same cost, we’ll get there in less time, and I’ll be more comfortable!”  The first two statements were true.

 

Depiction of Vishnu along the sidewalk in Ayodhya

However, in the packing efficiency that Indians seem to be experts at, the guy crammed 15 people into the 9, maybe 10 passenger van.  You might be thinking “well, if they’re all the size of you, Ravi, then that shouldn’t be a problem.”  They weren’t.  There were a few behemoth men who were on the journey too.  The part that was most disturbing though, that caused me to pray to reach Ayodhya safely, were the front seats (picture a driver seat, and then a bench on the passenger side) had not 2, not 3 (the max amount that should be in the front), but FIVE people!!  The driver was sharing a seat with one of the passengers, meaning half his body was hanging outside the window, and I didn’t want to know how he was able to press the brakes or shift the clutch.  Somehow, we made it there safely.

Example of Packing Efficiency 

Once in Ayodhya, I immediately went to Ram Janam Bhumi, the birthplace of Ram.  Like any tourist would have done, I whipped out my camera and took a picture of the place.  Not even a second after I clicked, I heard “Hey!  Come here!!” in a very forceful Hindi.  I walked over to the cops, all holding very large guns, and they commenced to chew me out in Hindi.  They were speaking too fast, so while I had no idea what they were saying, I quickly got the impression that taking pictures of this place was not allowed, and I gathered it was because, as my Lonely Planet book had told me, this is a very controversial site where both Hindus and Muslims claim religious significance, and it has been the site of numerous terrorist attacks.  I proceeded to apologize to the cop (in a very broken Hindi) and decided the rest of the day, I would ask before I took a picture of ANY temple. 

Kanak Bhavan – One of the temples I was allowed to take a picture of

Finally, because of the practice of kidnapping children and forcing them into a life of begging (where the kidnapper then takes the money from the children...like in Slumdog Millionaire), many people are torn on whether to give money to beggars because doing so only promotes the kidnapping by keeping it lucrative.  I’ve decided to try to instead give food, but so far have noticed that they look confused and only want the money.  This is making me think that those particular beggars are not genuinely hungry or needy. In any case, as I was holding a small box of mitai (sweets), ready to give it to the next beggar, I felt someone grab my hand and yank the sweets.  I let out a short (but manly!) shriek, and looked behind me.  That’s when I noticed a monkey running away. He then sat down, opened the box, and ate the sweets like he had done nothing wrong.  I started cracking up, and then this person behind me and I were like “Monkeys!  What are you gonna do?!”

The culprit.  Well, not him exactly, but probably his brother.

After that, my trip was over.  I decided to take an actual bus back to the city, and made it back to the hotel in one piece, where my Mom said she was proud of me for surviving my first real trip in India by myself.  I have to admit, I was a bit proud too!