Waking up in Pushkar at the crack of dawn. Your bed is a foot too short so your back is stiff, your hips hurt from lying on your side on a bed as soft as a brick. You blink several times before yu realise you have had the fan on full ball all night to keep you slightly cool so your eyes are stuck together and your mouth tastes like you've tounge kissed a puppy after its eaten some garbage. Your roomie is up and about fumbling through her pack and you kow you have 25 minutes before you need to be at the bus station. You head into the bathroom and splash your face in tepid water doing your best to remember not to rinse out your foul tasting mouth with the local water. After some fumbling you find your toothbrush (which now tastes like shampoo from being in the bottom of your toiletries bag) and a bottle of water to clean your teeth. You have a quick "shower" - which means you turn the cold tap on full ball to recieve a pitiful trickle of water down your back and decide to fill up a bucket from the tap and just pour it over your head. The entire bathroom is now flooded as the shower is just a tap on the bathroom wall and there is no recess to catch the water. You cautiously walk over to your towel (noting with frustration that you have absent mindedly soaked the toilet roll on the floor next to the loo) and attempt to dry the shower water off you. You experience a brief moment of bliss. You are clean for 2.5 seconds before it is rapidly replaced by sweat. You trundle back into the bedroom, no longer caring about modesty- the towels are too small to cover your breasts and groin at the same time and fumble through your pack to find some clean underwear enjoying the fan on your bare skin. You dress and expertly roll, fold and tuck all your belongings into your backpack and zip it up. You then realise you have forgot your toiletries and money/passport belt. Undress, put on passport belt and redress. Unlok your pack, slide around the bathroom collecting toiletries and repack and lock your bag. You pick up the two remaining one litre bottles of water in your room and drink them. Put your pack on your back and walk down 4 flights of stairs to reception to pay your bill, careful not to fall down the stairs in your slippery thongs and your heavy backpack.
After the usual rigmerol of paying your bill which is inevitably incorrect and no one ever has the right change, you trudge out to the front of the hotel and you hit it. India. Its hot. It smells like incense fresh cow shit, garbage, flowers and sand. You can simultaniously hear 2 bus horns, 6 auto horns, 3 men selling chai, cars, cows, people starting their day. Your fellow travellers are chatting about which bus to catch and how its inhuman to be awake before 9am. three rickshaw drivers come at your offering to carry your bags for a price, take you to anywhere for a price, and ask you 'madame wheru frrrom? You lokk liddle beet india I give you good price"
Your tour leader arrives and before you know it your being jammed into a rickshaw with your luggage and 2 other people. Your thighs are squeazed in tight next to eachothers and you dont know whos sweat that is on your legs. Your being thrown around corners at speed, dodging busses and cows, over bumps - when your head hits the roof "ohhh soreee madame very bump" - youve got dust in your mouth and eyes and your thirsty again. But it feels nice to havethe wind on your face and its now quite fun watching as your vehicle stops less than a centremetre from the truck crossing infront of you with 800 cartons of ciggarettes mking a muffin top over the top of the tray. You watch india wizz by in a flurry of dark skins and blight saris, fresh produce and sleeping cows. You smell burning wood, see a thousand deep fried delicious somethings being lifted from a wok and grimmage as a child and dog disagree over a piece of edable garbage.
As soon as you pull into the bus station 3 children run at you, they are dirty and their clothes are rags but their eyes are huge and they beg of you for money to buy bread. You ignore them and keep walking, cringing on the inside at this practiced indifference. You think about children back home with their baby wipes, nappies, fresh clothes, baby food, nutritional requirements, lactose intolerances, special activity regimes and snuggle blankets and your heart screams at the injustice as you tell them "NO" when they tug at your clothes and signify their hunger by putting their hands in their mouths. A man runs at you with an arm full of puppets and yells prices at you in ever more desperate and decreasing amounts. Hes pushing them in your face and walking you backwards into a corner but you push through him with your head down "No thank you NO thank you NO THANKYOU!"
"AGRA AGRA AGRAAAAAAAAAA" shouts a man next to you as you dodge out of the way of his bus only to step into the path of a motorbike with 2 men on it who swerve around you at the last second with not a care in the world for your safety or their own. You push your way through the corwds of gawking locals staring at your spectacle of abnormal dress, movement, skin and luggage. No matter how much you cover up you still feel naked and obscene under their gaze. You manage to agree to paying 25 rupees for a bottle of water even though you know the locals pay less than 10 and grab a bag of chips for breakfast before your bag is grabbed and hefted into the back of a bus and you jump on desperate to find a seat that isnt brocken or crammed between undesirable travelling locals.
You're filthy already, your seat is uncomfotable and your stressed because you accidently bought super spicy curry flavoured chips for breakfast and your book is in the wrong bag and you have nothing to read for the next two hours. But you're on your way to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and you feel incredibly alive.
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