Sam Sneddon's trip to India was not for the faint of heart. Unfortunately, that describes him to a T.
Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler or read on.
I am a very anxious person. I have sleepless nights; I worry about things I can’t control. I find travel very stressful as travelling anywhere generally means that I will be somewhere unfamiliar and that sleep will be fitful and full of dreams of home.
In spite of this I hold true to the idea that travel is good for me, that repeated exposure to environments I find uncomfortable will somehow inoculate me against the stress they cause. So, in effect, I go on holiday so that someday I will be able to enjoy going on holiday.
In 2009, I decided to go to India for 5 weeks. I would be travelling with a friend from high school, his sister and my new girlfriend Andi. At that stage we had been dating about three months. Almost immediately, I realised that I was way, way out of my depth, comfort wise. My friend had been to India three times and was looking to push the envelope; he was there to have fun and take advantage of the ready availability of vices in India, whereas I was just trying to find equilibrium.
My friend had been to India three times and was looking to push the envelope; he was there to have fun and take advantage of the ready availability of vices in India, whereas I was just trying to find equilibrium.
He was always saying, “You have to follow your instincts in India,” and while that was no doubt true for him, for me it made no sense because my instincts said: 'Run! GO HOME! What the fuck are you doing here?'
While we had no real itinerary for the trip, there were two things that we all wanted to do. The first was to be in Varanasi for a solar eclipse and the second was to visit the so-called Valley of The Flowers, which is home to more than 500 different species of wildflower, some of which are unique to the valley.
Varanasi was easy to achieve. There is a railway station right there so you just get on a train and depending on where you are when you start, between four and 46 incredibly sweaty hours later you arrive. It’s a doddle.
Getting to the Valley of The Flowers is trickier; this is partly because it is very isolated and mostly because it is in the fucking Himalayas. It is a 500km drive from Delhi and then a 17km trek from the base of the mountain to the valley itself. And while the trek wasn’t causing me any worry, the drive had me on edge, and with good reason. In India, faith permeates every aspect of daily life, walking around in the early morning you are treated to innumerable shop keepers making their daily devotion to ensure a healthy trade; people touching a cow in the street and then blessing themselves.
I say this because the driving in India is the best example of the depth of their faith. They drive like they know they will be reincarnated.
So it was with real trepidation that I approached this particular part of the trip, and this was causing some fractures in the group dynamic. My friend had, by this point, had enough of my hesitation, and it came to a head as we sat by the road waiting to find a taxi. A car offered to take us and I refused to go with them, which led to a screaming match between me and him on the side of the road. Eventually we found a car and got underway, but because of the tension no one in the group spoke for several hours.
While the driver maintained the usual breakneck speed, and the cliffs on the side of the road became more and more perilous, the road didn’t feel too treacherous, and as we climbed the mountain in silence I actually found myself starting to relax. The night before the trip I hadn’t slept, and the tension, the motion of the car and the relief that I wasn’t dead yet had lulled me into a half awake state. I started to have the same sensation that I have while watching a film and dozing, where all you receive is images and the plot becomes confused.
Trucks passing, people walking, the edge of a cliff, trees; it was in this state that I saw three men sitting on a bench by the side of the road. As I watched them, they all stood simultaneously and looked down the road. I snapped my head around just in time to see the car in front of us plunge over the edge of the cliff. I was now fully awake.
We came to a halt. I jumped out of the car and got to the edge of the cliff just in time to see the vehicle tumble to a stop. It had gone end-over-end and had all but disintegrated.
We came to a halt. I jumped out of the car and got to the edge of the cliff just in time to see the vehicle tumble to a stop. It had gone end-over-end and had all but disintegrated. I saw a something orange fluttering from one of the rocks far below and I realised that it was a sari that had been partially unwrapped from its wearer during the crash. She looked as though she was reclining on the rocks as if for a photoshoot.
The road, like everywhere else in India, was busy, and people were pouring out of their cars and down the side of the hill. Our driver did the same. The bodies of the dead were passed up the hill by a kind of human chain and placed on the side of the road. Our driver returned about 30 minutes later, out of breath and with blood on his shirt.
“Three persons dead” he said. “Let’s go”
And so we went.
As we passed where the bodies were laid out I noticed that someone had survived. A child, who, while clearly in shock, seemed unhurt. While I don’t really remember the rest of the drive, I did note that for about an hour the driver drove extremely carefully and clicked his tongue at anyone driving “normally”, but after that it was business as usual.
We arrived at the small town at the foot of the mountain. We found a place to stay and went to our respective rooms and I asked my new girlfriend what we should do. “Just keep going, I don’t think there's anything else we can do,” she said. I was so grateful to have her there in that moment, and I’m still grateful, and she is still here.
The next day we started up the mountain. The Valley of the Flowers is on the way to Hemkund which is a holy site of pilgrimage for Sikhs and during the pilgrimage season over 150,000 people visit the mountain, so the trail was packed with people. We could hardly walk 100 or so meters without being asked to pose for a photo (really common in India, actually; it happened constantly). I was suffering from an upset stomach and we'd had an exhausting and frankly harrowing 24 hours. I’ve always wondered how those photos must have looked.
We got to the Valley the next day and it was really serene, although because the monsoon had been late that year, the valley wasn’t in bloom. So, Instead of the Valley of the Flowers it was just The Valley. But it was undeniably beautiful, and we were the only ones there, it was the only time in five weeks that we were by ourselves.
So. We survived. Of course, we still had to get back down the trail to the village, and then down the mountain to sea level, and the thought of doing that was frankly terrifying in light of what had happened. But we made it about half way down to a village and I found a chemist who sold me some Valium over the counter, and I have to say that made the rest of the trip down the hill pretty pleasant.
I look back on my experiences in India with huge fondness but also shake my head wondering why I ever went, and I honestly can’t wait to both go back there and never go there again.
Since then, Andi and I have been to Egypt - they had a revolution while we were there - and next month we are going to South Africa. I can’t wait to see what civil unrest will be waiting for us when we land; protesting students have been shot with rubber bullets and teargassed recently so that’s very exciting.
I still find it stressful, I still worry, but I also still cling to the idea that this trip will be the one to chill me out.
Well, maybe not this one. Maybe the next one.
This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Illustration: Rhianna McCormick-Burns
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