Arriving & Returning: Unpacking India & Nepal (2)

by Kayce Stevens Hughlett

"I have winged my way around the world and with that I bring back its glory and its weight. The story is not mine to keep secret. It is a story of magnitude, not smallness. So, today I begin." from Stepping into the Mess: Unpacking India and Nepal 

Seattle, Washington

May 16, 2017

It's pouring rain outside and about 50°F - half of what it is in Varanasi, India right now. It's evening there. Morning here. I can't decide where I am. Woozy from the nearly two-day trip home. We left our Bhaktapur (Nepal) hotel at 1:30 p.m. Sunday and arrived in Seattle the equivalent of 9:00 a.m. there on Tuesday morning. Five hours to Doha. Twelve hours overnight in the airport hotel. A sixteen-hour flight to LA. Customs. Alaska flight to Seattle. Uber home. Whew! 

It's good to be home and it feels strange. So quiet. No dogs barking or horns honking. Only the sound of Aslan purring and the occasional pouring rain on our metal roof. I feel the pull to watch Hulu or Netflix. I could easily get lost in there while my mind begs to grasp where I've been, where I'm going, and what do I do with it all? 

I lay here in the dark trying to remember our Haridwar hotel - The Haveli Hari Ganga - the one I dubbed the Heavenly Harry. My mind drew a blank trying to recall. It felt like years since we'd visited that setting. I could only get there by retracing my steps, going back to the train station in New Delhi, noticing our photography group for the first time, remembering the oddness of introductions. Who's with who? Where are you from? Have you been to India before? 

Our "first class" train ride. Where do we sit? Is it okay to drink the tea or eat the food?  My body and tastebuds were so happy to see and taste cold fresh greens when we arrived at LAX. It's wonderful to be able to drink water out of the tap. It all feels so clean here ... and a bit sterile and dull. 

I miss the sounds of India and Nepal. The call to prayer. Ohm. Kirtan music. I even miss the cow paddies on the pathways that nearly drove more than one group member over the edge. There is so much to remember, from that first train ride - Delhi to Haridwar, five hours through the countryside. Yes, it was just like the movies with people crowded into the open doors, although we never saw anyone on the roof.

Arriving in Haridwar, a holy city on the Ganges, and being transported by clean white taxis, then the transfer to bicycle rickshaws, our luggage wobbling like precarious pieces in a balancing game. The ride through loud narrow streets. This is India. Being greeted at our hotel with welcome mala beads. Our hotel room on the second floor, a keyed padlock to open and secure it.

I feel tired from taking that journey back to Haridwar. I read through my journlas and see that I've recorded more than I thought I had, numerous moments of kindness and connection. Beauty and depravity. Brilliant colors and radiant smiles. Twisted feet. Toothless grins. Poverty. Garbage. India is a both/and country.  I want to write more about the sadhus, the men in orange and white who we saw being fed in Haridwar ... the holy witness of sacrament ... there is so much more to say ... but not today.