14th to 24th of May, 2023.
Hitchhiking in India.
Back in Jaipur everything changes. I cannot find enough information for the Visa for Pakistan. Everything seems so confusing. For some reasons I thought it would be easier, but I guess that on top of that, there are so many other things I would need to decide and do, all at the same time, than that’s why things got all messed up.
I stay about one week with Lina. This time, we also visit a few more places in town but also, we go away to a farm guest house belonging to a friend of hers, who let us stay there for free. The place is gorgeous, super green and refreshing, mostly when compared to Jaipur, and it is also surrounded by a green landscape. Amelie and I enjoy a bit of swimming, and we also prepare a vegetarian barbecue. It is very nice! When we come back, I cook up a quick plan, so I can keep moving.
At first, I think I will do a volunteer work with the photographer friend of Lina, Anshul, who I met the first time I was here in Jaipur. That’s because I couldn’t find anything on Workaway, in Rajasthan, that I was actually interested on it. And why do I need another volunteer work? Well, the thing is, I cannot enter Myanmar by land, hitchhiking, because the borders are closed due to a civil war going on there. Because I am going East, the cheapest way to leave India, is flying to Thailand. The last resources I have in my possession, a bit over 100 U.S. Dollars, will go to that purpose. I was saving this money for the Visas for Bangladesh and Pakistan, that’s why I was not spending a cent. But now, my priority (and necessity) is to leave India, towards my next destination.
Without any credit card, and Lina not being able to help because she is Russian, and with everything going on in Russia, I decide to go all the way to the Airport, and try to buy my ticket there. After my lovely experience by hitchhiking within towns in Kerala, I decide to do the same here in Jaipur. I am not going to another town per se, but the Airport is slightly out of town, and I can take some really long ways there, on busy roads, so I don’t need to walk too much.
Hitchhiking works perfectly and I always meet wonderful people who help me. Buying the tickets, in other hand, it doesn’t work because of my stupidity. The details I prefer to keep in secrecy. But something really nice happens when I am coming back from the Airport. A car stops immediately, and the guy is on the phone but he tells me to get in anyway. Naveen strikes me as the most trustful person in the world, so I get in without even asking him where he’s going. And he seems so familiar… He is an actor and is current working in two tv series, Naagin and N4, but he has done many things already and he is quite famous. If you Google it him you will see. And he looks like two different actors: Dev Patel and Naveen Andrews. In fact, I think he looks like a mix of them both. Laugh.
Naveen is a wonderful guy and a super enjoyable person to talk to. He invites me to come over to his dance performances studio, Naveen School Performing Arts, or NSPA, so we can talk a bit more and I can get to know the place. He tells me about the classes they’ve got and the space is really nice. I just love people who take dance classes and / or are involved into getting people to do them. In this case, Naveen does both. One of the rooms has a wonderful wall art done by a foreigner who Naveen met randomly. It was a kind of volunteer work he did, just coming over and painting it. How awesome is that? Naveen even suggested that I could come and do something else too, because there are more empty spaces, and I’ve told him that I can also do some mural art, but because of my travel plans, I cannot really. Shame.
Back inside Jaipur now, I am hitchhiking in the streets, or main roads, which is awesome! I don’t have a sign or anything, so when people stop, I just tell them a reference point straight ahead, and that’s it. It works just fine!
When I move to Anshul’s place, he helps me to get the flight ticket. We go together to a travel agency he knows. They don’t charge me any commission for the ticket and I can pay with cash. Great! In case I was to stay with Anshul, I would help him with his photography studio, in his own house, where he lives with his parents. But as soon as I arrive, I decide to go travelling all the way to Ladakh, then from there to Jammu and Kashmir, and after that coming back to Jaipur for the volunteer work. In that way, I can rest for some time after the trip up North, and get ready for my trip to Thailand. Plus, during the two weeks I will be travelling, I might even find another volunteer work option somewhere else in Rajasthan.
Anshul drives me to a highway outside Jaipur, on the way to Ladakh. My plan is going from there all the way to Jammu and Kashmir, using the only available Northern Road, which not many people take it, but it supposed to be very scenic. But I do believe I will manage because it is the only way of going from one place to another, without going all the way back, through Himachal Pradesh. I had no idea that two things were about to happen: I would change my plans completely upside down; and that this was to be the toughest trip of my life until now.
10 Years Around the World 