Delhi to Amritsar...A holiday from the truck

Regardless of how hard I try, it is very difficult for me to find many positive things to say about this past week.

After the first misfortune of not being granted a Pakistan visa, we have found ourselves in India a week ahead of schedule, and having to create a travel plan to wile away the days until the truck catches us up. For the purpose of this entry there are five main members of the group that travelled together; myself, Vicky, Tim, Chris and Jay.

We arrived tired and sleep withdrawn in Delhi International Airport at 3.30am local time, where the temperature was still a smothering 31C. The first priority for us was simple; rest! Our journey had taken us from the truck in Yazd (Iran), to Tehran where we had spent one day, before a flight to Abu Dhabi airport (35C at midnight when we had arrived) where we had a 2 hour 45 minute wait before our next flight to Delhi. We simply were knackered!

We arrived at a hotel around 5.30am, which we booked for only a few hours as we already had an overnight bus to Shimla booked for 8pm the same day. We managed to sneak in around 2 hours sleep between meals, along with a quick walk down to India Gate, before we made our way to the bus station. The temperate on this day made it up to 44C. We boarded the bus and were pleasantly surprised to find a well decked out sleeper bus, although later while trying to actually sleep I discovered that it was built well for people of around 5’8” and under!

India Gate Memorial

Our arrival time at Shimla was around 6am local time, and here the temperature was pleasantly cooler. For those of you who don’t know, Shimla is in the foothills of the Himalayan region of India and was used as the capital of the country for 6 months of the year by the British Government while they ruled here. During the summer months when the temperature down on the plains became increasingly unpleasant, the Government would move their entire office system by a cattle train to Shimla to work in a more pleasant climate, before reversing the whole operation again 6 months later.

Naturally, from the above description you will guess that Shimla is built on the sides off a number of steep hills, and the bus (no surprise) only drives to the bottom! After 45 minutes of lugging our heavy main bags (normally stowed away on the truck) on top of our normal bags we made it to our hotel located on “The Mall” near the top of the hill. Unfortunately the hotel informed us that they were not ready to let us in to the hotel for another 6 hours! With nowhere to go, and nothing open, we slumped with our bags on the chairs outside the entrance to the hotel. After an hour or so, we think the people who run the hotel realised that we weren’t going to go away, and that we were going to sit there the whole time. They then found it in their hearts to invite us in and gave us two of the rooms that “weren’t available” (in other words they realised that bribes were not coming their way, and that we were just in the way)!

Several hours later however, things took a turn for the worse. Chris complained of feeling unwell, and within a short time he was struck down with a terrible sickness bug. After it was clear that he was quite unwell, Tim decided to help him get some medical attention. By the time Tim came back, he also had been struck by the same bug. 2 hours later…Vicky. Another hour later…me. Within a few hours of me being struck down, dehydrated and exhausted, I could not go on and collapsed. It was more intense than I could have imagined, and no matter how hard I tried I could not get any replacement fluids to stay in my body.

From this point my memories are blurry and few. I remember the ambulance pulling up, I remember being taken out of the ambulance, and I remember the pain of the needles being placed into my arms. But is was to be another 4 hours before I woke up to find myself laying on a metal trolley for a bed, with a drip in my left arm. Vicky, as it turned out had come in the ambulance with me, but then been admitted herself after throwing up all over the reception area.

A big thanks at this point goes to Jay, who had travelled with Vicky and I in the ambulance, and in turn looking after us with the nurses all night in the hospital.

After being released from the hospital mid-morning the next day, we tried to rest and repair ourselves before a long bus trip to Mandi the next morning. On arrival in Mandi we checked in to the Raj Mahal hotel which is the nicest hotel we have stayed in to date. During the checking in process, the Raj (or King as we would say) of the Mandi region decided he would like our company over dinner. He was a very witty and clever man with a soft spot for logic puzzles. It was just what I needed at the time as a distraction, as I had only 30 minutes earlier learned about the sad death of my Grandmother back in the UK.

We stayed only the one night in Mandi, but in the morning before we had to check out we made our way to Lake Rewalsar, which is known as the Lake of Sacred Fish. The lake is crammed with fish, all fighting for food being thrown in by the locals, which is a sight to behold! The lake has a number of temples around it, including a huge Buddhist temple on the far bank.

Looking across Lake Rewalsar

From Mandi we caught a bus out to Manali, which is in the foothills of the Himalaya’s. With the exception of a restaurant and the temple right at the top of the old part of the town, we didn’t really go anywhere as we were still trying to heal our bodies back to normality.

Us looking tired and under the weather with the Himalaya's in the background

After 3 nights in Manali, our next bus ride took us to Pallumpur. There was not a lot to see in Pallumpur, although this was a blessing as neither of us had recovered enough to go anywhere. After spending 2 nights there (during which we had numerous power cuts, which are a daily occurrence in India), we decided to catch the railway back to Amritsar where we would reunite with the rest of the group.

The railways were certainly an experience! We decided to use the narrow gauge service between Pallumpur and Pathankot, and the train was absolutely jammed with people. I managed to get a seat after around 45 mins, but once I had sat down I was literally not even able to move my legs for another 5 hours as there were people sleeping on the floor right in front of the seats. There were numerous people hanging on to the outside of the train as there was no room inside, even when we were crossing bridges with a 20 – 30 foot drop below us!

From Pathankot we caught the broad gauge service to Amritsar, but decided after our earlier journey to upgrade to the air conditioned sleeper class. This journey was only 2 hours for us, but it was so good to be able to stretch out in space while being a lot cooler as well.

We camped in the garden of the Mrs Bhandari Guest House in Amritsar once we were reunited with the group, and having a swimming pool there gave everybody a bit of a lift. Unfortunately, during our third day there Vicky was struggling a lot again with a bad stomach, and so another 12 hour stay in hospital was on the cards for her. I did get to see the Golden Temple from the outside, but unfortunately again our ill health put pay to our plans to actually visit it properly.

So that is the story of our time away from the truck, hopefully the next blog entry won’t be so focused on us being ill again!