Well what a wild start to this journey that was! Just a month ago I was boarding a plane to India, bawled my eyes out saying goodbye to loved ones and the world still felt relatively normal… Yet, three days after I arrived in Delhi, the W-H-O declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic, and President Modi revoked all travel visas restricting any more tourists from entering India.
Meant to be? Hard not to think so- see Quarantined in India- how I ended up happily stranded.
The last month:
After one week, I’d celebrated Holi with locals in the slums of Delhi, paid way too much for a tuk-tuk ‘tour’ in Jaipur and watched a stunning sunset from the heights of Jodhpur’s blue city. I really wanted to get away from tuktuks tooting in Rajasthan and have now spent 3 weeks in North India’s popular destination of Rishikesh! By chance, the universe has brought me here, hadn’t actually planned to visit Rishikesh!
Currently writing from a hammock in a large and homely hostel that comes with a view of the Himalayan mountains. (Thank f*ck!)
Nevertheless, while its felt like tensions and fear was growing around the rest of the world, the hustle and bustle and natural hospitality of the Indians continued as normal.
I’m used to looking like a local wherever I go, but it’s always hilarious to watch locals have to double take at me, never sure if my mixed skin tone and big curly hair could make me a native or not!
In mid-March, I arrived in Bikaner and found that some locals would shout “Corona, Corona!” as if it had become the new “selfie, selfie!”. On day 1, I met Christine from Germany, and on day 2 we were kicked out of our hostel in Bikaner and instructed apparently by ‘local governors’ to go to Delhi to be quarantined! The same night we met Ellie from Argentina and decided to stick together as the #CoronaSisters!
That didn’t happen. We made it to Rishikesh safely and lucky enough to a community of foreigners who had been through similar experiences.
We are now 3 weeks in Rishikesh, and the lockdown has just been extended till April 30th. During the past month anxiety has hit every so often with the doubts: How long will I be here? How long will my travel plans will be halted for? Should I go home? What is going on with the world?!
Profoundly I have found a beautiful family here amidst all the doom an gloom in the world. We have 50+ people locked in our hostel, sharing, cooking, relaxing, teaching and being together, as if it was some kind of retreat from life!
I keep having to stop and accept the blessing that brought me here (I hadn’t planned to come to Rishikesh). And in these few weeks of lockdown I have begun to accept the present and lessons I am learning. No doubt this situation is arousing thoughts, feelings and understandings in ways I didn’t think possible. But it feels they are learnings that will carry me on the right path when my journey resumes.
So my stats for MONTH 1:
- Places visited: Delhi, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner and Rishikesh!
- Trains taken: 4
- Buses taken: 0
- Favourite hostel: Indian Culture in Rishikesh!
- Best meal: Spicy/cheese masala dosa with butterscotch milkshake at Jantra Sweet home in Jodhpur!
Money spent TOTAL: £307.28 (8th March-8th April)
- On accommodation: £104.46
- Transport: £40.88
- Food, daily spending & everything in-between: £161.94
SO…Daily spend in first month = £9.91 per day! Literally what I’d spend on an average lunch in London has covered my daily cost in India!!!
A quote to sum up March for me:
You can’t change a past that has already happened. You can’t control a future that is relatively unknown. That leaves us with the present, right now”
For now, this is not the trip I planned but I will remain quarantined here for the foreseeable. Things are changing so fast that I have to take each day as it comes. As do all of us wherever we are!
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