The Man with the Dirty Rag
It was refreshing to finally drive out of the city. We loaded up the bus in the morning with our backpacking gear and headed out early. Once out beyond the city buildings I felt a little bit more at peace. The countryside around New Delhi was covered with farm fields that were in various stages of being plowed, growth, or being fallow; but the view of the greenery and the plowed earth somehow made everything more peaceful – except for the highway. The highway was nothing short of controlled chaos. Mostly it was just 2 lane and always crowded. There was always somebody that wanted to go faster than whoever was in front of them, so passing was not only the norm, it was constant. And as I said the road was crowded and that includes both directions. There was a constant game of chicken going on between people that were behind the bus trying to pass and the oncoming traffic; and also between people trying to pass and the bus driver himself! People would try to pass our bus in what I considered to be oncoming traffic that was too close. Then they would honk their horn to let the bus driver know that they were coming and that he should slow down, but when they would honk their horn he would speed up. Then they would speed up and the game of chicken was on! Almost inevitably the oncoming car would not slow down. The whole thing would have been interesting to see in a movie entitled “Who Will Slow Down And Yield First,” except that I was in one of the vehicles. This was a source of constant anxiety and you just had to train yourself not to look at the road, not to listen to the horns, and always stay braced in your seat in case of the head on!
But as I said, the countryside was beautiful. The little roadside stops were very much like southern Mexico where the climate is tropical, the land is green, and the dilapidated roadside stops are plentiful. I remember the first day we stopped about 10 o’clock to get breakfast because we had left fairly early in the morning. The place that we stopped at was a ratty little eatery that consisted of a building completely open on two sides with picnic style tables underneath it, and a smaller portion of the building behind the main area that was the kitchen. The one bathroom was dirty, run down, had no toilet paper, and had no paper towels if you wash your hands – and you always wanted to wash your hands when you are in Northern India. The proprietor was quite happy to have a whole bus full of people stop at his little shop and was quite busy seating us and making us happy and getting someone in the back to do the cooking. We had a meal of eggs and flour styled “tortillas” that were essentially water, flour, and salt made into patties and fried on a griddle.
Before I tell you what happened to unfortunate Debbie, I should mention my primary concern while in India. I knew that I would be there for a month and I preferred very strongly not to get an intestinal bug. There’s nothing worse than being in a foreign country and being constantly nauseous and vomiting. I was unfortunate enough to have this experience in Egypt and I was hoping very strongly not to repeat it. There are certain things you do to prevent that kind of accident from happening. Don’t drink the water, don’t drink anything with ice cubes, and pray that the plates and utensils that you are using were soaked in soapy water. I think we were all concerned about the same thing. So of course when the proprietor offered us water we all politely refused. There was an old on-the-ground styled refrigerator, and luckless Debbie went to the machine and pulled out some kind of orange colored soda. It may have been mango or some other fruit, and it was in a bottle with an old-styled pry-off metal cap on it. There were no can openers anywhere to get the metal cap off so she asked the proprietor how she could open it. The grungy little proprietor quickly grabbed the bottle from her hand, used a bottle opener to open it that he took from his apron, and then to the horror of everyone watching he wiped the top of the bottle off on an absolutely dirty rag he had hanging from his apron. And I mean this rag was filthy! It was supposed to be white but it was completely covered in brown dirty stains from wiping down everything in the whole building. And we all watched as he wiped the top rim of the bottle off with his rag very thoroughly and then handed the bottle back to Debbie with a big smile on his face like he had just done her great service. And I remember distinctly watching her take the bottle in her hand with this horrified look on her face as she stared at the top of the bottle and at the rag that he had just wiped it with. Then he stood there waiting for her to drink it. It was quite a scene as she hesitated there staring from the top of the bottle to the dirty rag. Knowing that the proprietor couldn’t speak English, I discreetly suggested to her that she wiped the top of the bottle off with her hand sanitizer, which she immediately did. It may have made this soda taste funny, but it was a solution to the problem that she could live with.
Ganges in Flood
Our route from New Delhi to the Himalayas took us across the floodplains of the Ganges River, and because it was the end of monsoon season the Ganges was in flood stage. Roads accommodate flood stage by being elevated 8 to 10 feet in the air like a road built across the top of a dike. From this vantage point we could see the trees that would have separated the fields had they not been underwater, and we often could see children playing in the water diving in from the side of the road and swimming. The water looked to be at least deeper than the children were tall. Within a month the floodplains would be drained and another year of rice planting would begin. But for us as geoscientists, it was wonderful to see one of the biggest and most famous rivers in the world in complete flood stage. Everywhere you looked from the vantage point of the roads you traveled you could not see the end of water flooded across this gigantic plane. Of course towns were always built on elevated locations that were not susceptible to flooding. (This alone could be a great lesson to more “developed” countries like United States where there is a complete disregard for floodplains and their potential hazards.)
The cities that we drove through in this area consisted of buildings that were extraordinary Indian in architecture some having domes at the top or arched doorways going into a point. The buildings were white but frequently gave you the impression that they were tan as a result of the dirt. Main roads going through the cities were usually laid out perpendicular to the highway that we traveled thus allowing us a good view up road after road through the city. Many of the city roads were dirt, and they were all crowded with people causing an overall haze of brown dust to rise up from the city. Most of these people were walking, with occasional cars, and occasional ox carts pulled by and oxen. The temperature was hot and very humid leaving you with a sense of how uncomfortable it would be to live in this extraordinary land.
Next week: the garbage dump road, and the grain harvest in the Himalayan foothills