After a night on the Indian Road
But the moment we left the posh gated community were we stayed, where the houses and atmosphere are a very pleasant remnant of a different Delhi that we met some years ago, you are thrown into the snarling traffic of the city and you realize that things are again familiar. The traffic is frantic. The cars are brushing one to each other in a way that shocks you that they do not touch. When they stop at a traffic jam they are like sardines cans, so closed packed that people cannot pass between them. And they still do not touch. The roads outside the city are the same that we encountered 12 years ago. I understood that they improved the roads in Rajasthan but in UP is still a log way to go. The traffic stalls and the 200km to Haridwar that we are supposed to drive in 7 hours becomes a reality in time. Yes, the car has AC that I still refuse to use preffering to drive with the window open and my camera outside to shoot in the traffic. The new Toyota Innova hope to have acceleration problems to move us faster, over the standard 40km/h….
On the way we stop to a new temple finished in 2005 and here I face the new India after all the terrorist attacks. The security screening at this temple is probably more strict that at the CIA. There are lots of people that are hired in the process, at least 10 I meet on my way to the temple’s inside and after I deposit everything at the check boxes, no cameras, etc. they turned me around because I still have the wired headphone of my iPhone. They accepted to have on me just money and passport. But the temple is worth the visit. They are building and decorating an extremely already ornate temple, where the mandir is surrounded by elephants taken from the legends. The rest is completely decorated with intricate motives, no area being left untouched. After leaving the temple we hop on the highway, or the way the four lane road is named. There are two senses separated with a heavy boundary that cannot be crossed but somehow if the traffic needs to come on our way it will do it. As a result the 2 one way lane is commonly shared with incoming traffic, and the situation is so normal that the horn pressing is done only to your co directionals in traffic. The incoming traffic is just avoided like flies. After an hour of huge traffic jams we leave the 4 lane road to a 2 lane or better said a generous 1.5 lane road, because we veer into the shoulder, sort of shoulder full with bushes, every time an incoming cars comes our way. And we go like this for some hours with 40km/h and when we get an empty stretch, rarely, it goes to up top 90 km/h….I know it is the Toyota.
We stop on one of those magnificent car stops and have lunch in a bucolic atmosphere surrounded by flowers and we keep going to Haridwar. When we are getting close, the city traffic is diverted and we get into the city on a detour road. But not exactly into the city because being Kumbha Mela all traffic is blocked and after numerous calls to the camp manager and some luck we figure out how to get into the city and we arrive at the camp around 7:00 pm after we met Rajiv, the camp manager who came with some business into the city. We freshen up, get our tent, 5 start tent, because we have even electricity and a tap of water in the back in the mud. But this is no big deal because in the camp you have to walk barefoot so it stays in the spirit. We get introduced to some other people in the camp, Vladimir fro Moscow in search of self realization and Rita from Calgary in search of more travels after a sojourn in South Africa and one in Singapore. Rajiv makes the arrangements and we go and meet Babagi, a close relation of my friends and they introduce me to him. Her is quite of a presence, is very interested to know if everything is taken care of, wants to give me a hook in Varanasi at a monastery and we plan to come back with some gifts after dinner. The dinner is served on the ground, on plates and cups made out of leaves, large leaves, and is a combination of chapati with delicious curry and some potatoes. Everything here is veg with no eggs and some specific grains. After dinner we visit Babagi again and go to sleep in the sumptuous apartments with the music blasting from the outside speakers playing the songs of the kirtan and bajan. It tapper off in the night and we have a great sleep till about 4:00 am because of the jet lag.
Follow us on Instagram