My 35.5-Hour Day

Leaving from Chicago, the total time change to Mussoorie this time of year (because of Daylight Savings Time) is 11.5 hours. I left Chicago at 10 p.m. Chicago time, and slept most of the plane ride, so my 35.5-hour day began following that flight, upon my arrival in Istanbul, Turkey at 4:45 p.m. local time. I left Istanbul a mere three hours later, after it had already grown dark. Since that was so close to my morning, I slept very little during the five-hour flight to Delhi, arriving at 5 a.m. From there, I transferred to the domestic terminal at the Delhi airport (which was more like a separate airport), where my five-hour layover for my flight to Dehradun became a seven-hour layover due to a changed flight. Fortunately, I met a nice 21-year-old Australian named Alex. His flight also was later than expected, so we hung out for about five hours until I had to leave. Upon my arrival in Dehradun, I collected luggage and walked out to meet Margaret, who had been waiting quite patiently for two hours because I could not get a hold of her to inform her of the flight time change. We drove through Dehradun, stopping for some fantastic Dal Makhani, Vegetable Jalfrezi, Garlic Naan, and Pistachio ice cream at a local restaurant and driving up through Mussoorie to our home base for this week – the Landour Language School. As I write this, it I 7:10 a.m. in Indianapolis, and I have not slept more than briefly since approximately 9:00 a.m. Indianapolis time almost 24 hours ago. I’m very surprised that I am not more tired than I am.

Comments on traveling:

Those of us from the United States and other English-speaking countries are quite fortunate because so many people around the world speak English, making it much easier for us to travel around the world with minimal problems.

When traveling internationally, I think it makes sense to notice and even reach out to those who you think (even sometimes erroneously) to be similar to you. On my first flight, I was sitting next to a white man. My first reaction: gladness that I was sitting next to a fellow American. Turned out he is Russian. He has been living in the United States for a while and was traveling to Russia for the holidays. We were able to talk for a little while, and he asked to carry my extra carry-on luggage off the plane for me. My connection to Alex (the Australian) developed when we were both standing at the ticket counter trying to sort out our various issues for our flights. As a white man, particularly one with a plane ticketing problem, it was pretty clear that he was a tourist. I think these experiences display reasons we as humans tend to notice various social categories (such as race). In doing so, we are attempting to use surface judgments to find someone similar to us. Obviously, we then take the steps to move beyond these initial connections and develop connections with those who are different from us, from whom we can learn a great deal.

First impressions of India:

It’s exactly what you picture in many ways. Transportation beyond the airport is exactly how it is described: chaotic. People who know what they are doing have a handle on the situation, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be driving around India. And there is a lot of honking, but it’s used as a form of communication rather than in anger. Some trucks even have “BLOW HORN” painted on the backs of their vehicles. Perhaps Americans can learn from Indians about the use of horns for communication, although I wouldn’t suggest quite as frequent use.

In the places I’ve been so far I’ve seen a lot of the little roadside shops you see so many pictures of. And nearly everything gets repurposed. So many things are made of repurposed objects. It tends not to suit our American perceptions of what is good and aesthetically pleasing, but it has a certain beauty all its own.

P.S. When I arrived and walked out of the airport, I thought I had packed too much in the way of warm clothes, but now I'm starting to think I did just fine.