Rishikesh > Gurgaon > Bangkok > Vientiane

[Originally posted Jan 10, 2015]

Shhhh.  Don’t move.  It’s so quiet.  Very quiet.  And calm.  And clean.

When we landed in Vientiane, Laos everything was instantly different.  The line to get a visa on arrival was short and lacked the ridiculous amount of paper work we saw in Kathmandu.  Just a friendly man, who answered our questions, stamped our passports and pointed us in the right direction.  We got to the baggage claim last, and there were only six bags left - four of them were ours - and no people in sight.  I can’t remember the last time I was in a public building and couldn’t see any other people.  Just sitting by their peaceful selves, our bags looked lonely.  Even our bike could tell we had left the commotion and India and it could relax.

We grabbed our bags and exited the area.  No one checked our baggage tickets.  No one tried to rip off our arm and pull us into their taxi or to their hotel.  I withdrew 1,000,000 laotian kip from the ATM, not because I’m a millionaire but because an 8,092 to 1 exchange rate calls for some large currency.

Placing our bags into the bag of the taxi felt more like teamwork than a fight.  The man smiled and we jumped into his car.  Their were white lanes painted on the road, indicating where cars should go, and unlike our taxi ride this morning, our driver spent most of the time in his lane.  A sidewalk on the side of the road was clean and clear, I imagined that people walk down the road without ever wondering if they are going to step in red paan (chewing tobacco) spit or cow manure.  An evening walk could help you unwind, not get wound up.  We approached a red light and our driver stopped.  This is weird! And then another car pulled up behind us and left us 10 or 12 feet of room.  Space.  Order. Logic.  Reason.  No cows.  Very few people on the streets.  I thought I was back home in the States.  We continued our drive and the out of body experience continued.  There were no potholes, no unnecessary speed bumps every 30 or 40 meters.  Quiet and peaceful.

I guess I should have guessed things would be different a couple hours earlier when I boarded our Thai Airways flight from Delhi to Bangkok.  The plane was just a little bit different, bright pink and purple seats, airplane attendants in a different style of dress.  When our plane landed it was warm and humid, a stark contrast to the cloudy and cold days we’ve had lately in Northern India.  We entered the terminal and were hit by a wall of cold air, hmm, air conditioning.  A free public wifi service actually had a signal, and content on my phone (mail and Instagram) actually uploaded.  The bathrooms were stocked with complimentary toilet paper (strange I know) and we ordered Dairy Queen desserts from a lady named Mook.

Our time in India was great.  I already miss it.  But I didn’t realize how truly unique that place is until I left.  I’ve only been gone for ten hours or so, but I already miss the chaos, the hordes of people, the chai shops, the bicycle rickshaws, the utter confusion, the holy men, the wandering cows, the rickshaw drivers who always try to rip you off.  It’s natural to be fond of the difficult times in your life, the times that really push you to the limit.  That was definitely India.  Sitting on the limit, never sure which way you would fall.

Our last night in India was spent with two of Katy’s work friends from Google.  We took a quick tour of the building (gym, fitness room, room to take a nap, massage room, micro kitchen complete with snacks, cafeteria - all the typical basics you would expect from a company).  After our visit we went to dinner in Cyber City in Gurgaon.  It is arguably one of the fastest growing areas in India.  Ten years ago it was basically farm land, but today it is multiple high rise residential buildings, the offices of many international companies and a slew of American chains - KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dominos and then some others like Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Red Mango, Dunkin Donuts.  It feels very European and none of it existed ten years ago.  Most people see it as tremendous progress and development, which it surely is, but it is also sad (I think) to believe that progress is synonymous with the introduction of a bunch of American food chains.  No one wants to travel around the world to go to Starbucks in the morning, have KFC for lunch and look for a pizza delivery place for dinner.  What is so great about India is that part of India that will never change. 

(warning - Clayton’s rambling ahead)

For better or worse, the vast majority of the 1.2 billion people that is India, will never change.  It will still be chai-wallahs and samosa chaat on the street.  It will still be a rickshaw driver who assumes I have tons of money (cause I do) and it will still be gritty, real and authentic India.  Lives will still be defined by the caste system, marriages will still be arranged by parents.  It’s a different reality, one that is hard for me to wrap my head around, but it is India.  Most people in India have very few options of what type of life they will live - they’ll do the type of work their parents did and they’ll marry who their parents suggest.

Walking home from dinner in India I’m confronted with numerous people sleeping on the side of the street, on top of a piece of cardboard and under a single blanket - a guy who sleeps next to his bicycle rickshaw, all of his world possessions in the world right there in front of him.  If he works all day he might make a couple bucks, enough to have chai with his friends, a meal or two, chew some tobacco and find a nice spot of ground to sleep on before waking it up and doing it all again in the morning.  I’ll stop and reflect on my own life.  Then I’ll look back at his life.  I’ll grapple with the ideas of fairness, gratitude, poverty and suffering.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between poverty and suffering.  Much of India is poor, very poor.  But poor by Western standards.  They appear happy and healthy and are doing well.  They are vibrant, they smile and are full of energy.  It’s a tough life, no doubt, but one they’ve been living for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, I’m not sure that just because I have arrived in India, their life is suddenly “unfortunate” or “miserable” or “sad”.  It’s unfair for me to project that onto them. 

Many people, myself included, will travel to a place like India and then leave with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude that our life is “not as bad as theirs”, that we are “so blessed” and that we have “so much.” (We then quickly return to our boring neighborhoods where nothing interesting in a thousand years will ever happen.)  I don’t like this idea.  What is “so much?”  A nice car?  Lots of student loans?  Enough money to travel?  A cabin?  A closet full of shoes?  A basement full of bikes?  A sailboat in the garage?  Three or four pairs of skis?  It’s easy to think that we are “better off” because we have lots of stuff.  Yes and no.  No doubt, money solves a lot of problems.  It provides food, shelter and access to health care - not something that everyone has.  But money doesn’t necessarily get us anything really meaningful - relationships with family or friends, fulfillment from work, devotion to God, a positive attitude.  India may not have a lot of money, sure, but they seem to be doing pretty well in these other areas.  They work hard, have families and make religion a central part of their life.  That guy sleeping on the cardboard box may not have a lot of the things I take for granted, but tomorrow morning when he goes to work, I’ll be he’s got a smile on his face.  And when our time on Earth ends he'll be able to take that smile with him and all of "my stuff" will just be stuff.

PS: Apologies for slow and inconsistent writing as of late (or maybe you are happy to have less SPAM in your inbox).  I've started writing a book (about this trip) and it turns out this endeavor is 1) very time consuming and 2) extremely difficult.