This is part two of a two-part story. Part one ran April 5.
RISHIKESH, India – 3:30, 4:30 and 6:10, my one open eye jumped up at the easing creeching and that final one got me, waking Natasha and running those cars back to grab the packs and Kelly before this thing got to chuggin’ again.
Hurrying by, my bag and strapped-on tent slapped the feet of all those unawakened as I went.
We threw our stuff out just in time and took a big breath of nasty, rotten train station air.
The train started back up and opportunistic porters and beggars washed up on us like a hurricane’s high tide. A young boy in pale blue uniform came by with kettle and cups, “Chai-Chai-Chai-Chai-you want Chai tea?” His voice trailed off, echoing through the station.
Outside the train station, the dusky smog of dawn hung like limp gauze from the stained concrete rooftops and the rusted steel street lamps of the little visited city of Saharanpur.
Hundreds of cycle rickshaws fanned out, a battalion of creaking pedals waiting to be stroked, getting their splintered carriage’s cargo to and fro.
The bus stop was only a block away and we stopped for chai and snack and that beleaguered and exhilarated time of surreal realization that comes as a sigh of relief in the form of “remember that.”
Kelly pointed out how, “Being in Dharamshala for that long makes you forget you are in India.”
Rupees paid, I heard the screams of “To Haridwar-To Harid-war.” We ran over to the bus and I started taking the packs on top of the bus. I got Kelly’s up (her shoulder was recently injured in a yoga accident), and towed mine up. Natasha was bringing hers up the ladder when I felt the bus stutter and crank as it was being put into first gear.
She hurried it off her back and I rushed, tying the packs down and as she headed for the ladder.
The bus driver applied gas and moved on just like that.
In that initial sluggishness of a bus’ gettin’ goin’, we yelled and stomped, protesting our seats.
Natasha fell down, while I sort of crouched looking ahead for a hopeful traffic clog.
I heard “Watch out! Watch out!” I turned and ducked like a ninja from the swing of sword, parrying the blade of the low hanging group of telephone and electrical wires. I dug myself in for the bumpy ride as I heard second gear shift to third.
The wind blew across my stale face and Natasha started doing this freaking-out laughing thing that she does only when she gets really scared.
I looked ahead, only seeing open road and looked for Toto, cause I knew this wasn’t home.
Closing my eyes and feeling the speed run through my hair I yelled to Natasha, “Material don’t come easy, ya’ hear!”
She replied very unsteadily back that, “Well, I don’t need any damn material!”
Suddenly Toto barked and the bus came to halt, in the middle of the road, as rickshaws went by waving to us top o’ bus dwellers.
Kelly’s frantic antics and semantics from downstairs had finally gotten somebody to step on some brake.
She said she yelled and pointed until every single one of the non-English, groggy, going-to-work Indian peoples finally got the idea.
I slid down the bent-up, slick, back-of-the-bus ladder and hopped aboard.
I smiled at the driver with caffeine jitters and stuntman adventure pounding in my heart.
My tired aching body slid into the green pleather seat and we all had a laugh, while most of the bus was turned, still staring at us.
The ride to the next bus change was short and beautifully green. Lines of symmetrical orchards made for a sliding show of three-dimensional, one-point horizon views through the rows of anorexic flanks.
Water buffalo were carrying boys to fields and the flatbed backs in tow carried rusted hoes and shovels and loads of things untold.
Onto the next bus we passed and, as if lured by karma, headed up into the Garhwal hills to Rishikesh.
Rishikesh sits in the lotus position on the bank of the Ganga River, which is sacred to Hindus and yoga hippies all over the world.
It’s quiet, un-touristy, loaded with temples, cheap food, and plenty of river-banked rooms with a view. This place is cool.
Neither meat nor spirits are sold in the entire city. Plenty of ganja though.
The Beatles used to escape here from the late 60’s to write The White Album and Abbey Road.
I just ate dinner at one of their rumored old favorite restaurants.
Hell, John Lennon may have been sitting here on this same rock, under this same bridge (by the antiquated looks of it, they may have even taken the exact same bus.)
Sitting, Mr. Lennon may have watched the same sky grow gloomy and orange with the fall of dusk and seen people fill up bottles of the same sacred water and then may have written about it with the same kinda chewed up pencil, in a similar ratty notebook.
Hell, he may have even imagined some of the same things I am right now.

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