We left the place we were staying in Kolkata at 4:15am. It was already hot & we were
sweating. Really? At 4:15am?
The bus didn’t leave until 5:30am, but we had some bad experiences with
taxi drivers taking us to the wrong places, so we didn’t want to risk it. Our taxi’s showed up almost on time, and in
less than 10 minutes we were where we were supposed to be to wait for our bus
to Bangladesh. Well, better early than
late. So we sat around for over an hour,
more people came, the bus showed up, and we finally boarded. The bus had the most annoying musical horn in
the world, and the driver insisted on using it every 30 seconds or so, making
it nearly impossible to sleep. That, and
the swerving side to side, made it difficult.
We make it to the Indian/Bangladesh border where we were
informed to get off the bus and take all our hand luggage. Um, ok.
No idea what is going on. They
herd us through a chaotic mix of people and send us into a building with some
chairs, and we were told to wait there.
Oh, and this was after they had already taken all our passports on the
bus. In this room, there were half a
dozen men all yelling to exchange money from rupees to taka. I had been instructed by our contacts earlier
to exchange a little bit of money so we would have some on hand, and then could
exchange the rest in country. So I went
up to one of the men to exchange some American money, and a few rupees, and he
tried to inform me that I had to exchange all US Dollars & Indian Rupees
there because Indian customs would confiscate it all. What?!
That makes no sense. People
aren’t allowed to travel out of India carrying rupees or dollars? Bogus.
I then proceeded to hide all rupees & dollars that I didn’t want to
exchange in my money belt and told my team to do likewise.
After about an hour or so, the exchange men started yelling
things to everyone in Hindi and everyone got up to go out. One of them finally spoke in English and told
us to follow everyone. So we followed,
not knowing where we were going, or what the heck was going on. We enter into this building, walk down a long
hallway, and enter into another room where there were about 4 or 5 Indian men
sitting at little booths. There were a
few chairs in the room, that were already taken, but some younger Indian guys,
probably in their early 20’s, kept yelling at us to sit down. There was nowhere to sit down. Finally after a few minutes of them yelling
at us to sit, a few more chairs were brought which we sat in as we were
told. We still had no idea what was
going on. A few minutes later, another
young guy walks in carrying all of our passports. Not any of the Indians’, just ours. What the heck? Why did this guy have our passports? He wasn’t uniformed, didn’t look official in
any way. Just some young punk with our
passports. Inside each of the passports
was an exit form that had already been partially filled out.
The guy proceeded to come up to each of us, was asking for
home phone numbers, if we were students, and had us sign the forms. I couldn’t figure out why the heck this guy
had our passports, why he was filling out the forms, and why none of the other
passengers where having to go through this.
The guy and his buddies told us we had to wait 30 minutes. Why?
We still had to cross the border and meet our bus on the other
side. We didn’t know if it would wait for
us, or what was going on. The guy came
back to us and told us that we had to pay 300 rupees to get our passports
stamped with the exit stamp. What? That makes no sense. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. It didn’t make any sense why these guys had
only the foreigners’ passports, and why they were yelling at us to sit, when
everyone else was walking up to the booth with their own forms and picking up
their stamped passports. My assistant
leader wanted to pay them and just do it.
I wasn’t going to have it. Mind
you, 300 rupees is only $6, but still, it’s the principal of the thing. No one else was having to do this, it was
only because we were white. I admit, I
was super pissed and probably didn’t respond the best way, but it was clear to my
team that I was frustrated with this whole situation. We had no idea what was going on, had been
continually yelled at and herded to various places, still no idea what was
going on, it was at least 102 degrees outside and humid as all get out. I was hot, sweating, didn’t know what was
going on, trying to lead my team and direct them, and now some punk was trying
to rip us off just because we were white.
Not ok.
I proceeded to stand up and watch everything for a while to
make sure it was just us being treated this way, then walked towards the booth
where I saw our passports being processed.
One of the guys kept telling me sit down, sit down. I responded in a rather angry tone saying, “I
don’t want to sit down,” and moved in closer to our passports. A couple of the guys on my team also stood
with me and we waited and watched our passports be stamped. We moved in as soon as possible to grab them
and proceeded outside to pick up our luggage, without paying those punks a darn
rupee, thank you very much. Don’t try to
rip me off just because I’m white.
Sheesh!
I wish I could say the chaos ended there, but it
didn’t. Once we walked outside, we saw
all our bags sitting in a pile…the only ones there. Everyone else on our bus had already been
processed and we had no idea if the bus was even still around. As soon as we walk towards our bags, all
these men started picking them up and carrying them. Right away I realized they were all wearing
red shirts and where luggage carriers.
Some guy had mine and didn’t want to release it. Some of my team thought these guys were just
helping, and I yelled out to them, “No.
Grab your bags. You have to pay
them. Don’t let them carry them.” So then we fought these guys to get our own
luggage. So frustrating. Then we have to carry everything to this
other room where there were some military looking officials who were taking all
our passports and asking what we were doing in India, how long we had been
there, and if we enjoyed our time.
Really? Fortunately, I was not
asked this question as I have no idea how I would have responded. India is one of my least favorite places I’ve
traveled. The last 3 days in Kolkata
where a #10 on the stress meter (10 being the most stressful), it was stinking
hot, everyone is coming up to you or pulling on you begging, people are trying
to rip you off left and right, and it’s the nosiest, smelliest, most chaotic
place I’ve been in my life. Granted,
there are some good things about the country, but I was so frustrated at this
point, it was hard for me to find those good things and not speak my mind in
that moment.
We were finally released and told to go outside so we could
cross the border. Everyone was staring
as usual, because we were white. We get
out there, carrying all our luggage, it’s still bloody hot, and there’s no
bus. Awesome. Where the crap is our bus? Then some men tell us in English to follow them behind some
building. Yeah, that’s not sketchy. We reluctantly go, and are directed inside a
back entrance of the building where we were handed a Bangladesh entry card to
fill out. Ok, a little more at ease, we
weren’t being taken somewhere to be trafficked.
We filled out our forms and handed them and our passports to men at a
booth who were actually wearing a uniform and looked official. They asked us a few questions, took our
picture, and stamped our passports so we could go. We walk outside and there’s still no
bus. At this point, I’m thinking the bus
has totally left and I have no idea what we are to do with that. Some guy told us to follow him again, so we
followed him down the street a while and he led us down some alley (again,
sketchy), and then into a building that fortunately, had the name of our bus
company on it. They asked for our
tickets, and then randomly some mini-van type thing pulls up. They started loading our luggage and told us
to get in. Meanwhile, we have beggars
all around us holding their hands out and pulling on us to give them
something. We get in the van, drive for
a bit, sometimes on the wrong side of the divider, and after a few minutes we
pull up in front of a large travel bus.
It’s different than the one we were on, but it was somehow our bus. We unload, they check our tickets, argued for
a while in Bangla over the fact that we had 8 pieces of luggage, and finally
started to load it all on the bus. The
bus was parked about 2 feet away from the curb and there was nasty, muddy water
on the ground, a few inches deep. I had
a small, fleece sleeping bag that was in a net-bag that was tied onto the
outside of my backpack. One of my
students threw my bag into the luggage compartment and the sleeping bag fell
into the muddy water. Really? NASTY!
He grabbed it as soon as possible, and it didn’t seem to get too
bad. For some reason though, my bag was
pulled out again, and some Bangladeshi guy through it back in, and again, the
sleeping bag fell into the muddy water, leaving it a bit longer this time. Awesome.
I now have nothing to sleep in.
Oh, I was so frustrated.
The workers kept yelling at us to get on the bus, and after
making sure all our luggage made it on, I entered the bus. There were people on it who had been on our
earlier bus. They had held it for us. Thank you Lord! And this bus was even nicer than the previous
bus. So we proceeded to drive through
the country, at one point driving on to a ferry to cross a river, and then
drove some more. Somehow, our contact
had gotten the cell number of the bus manager and was able to call him and
communicate with me. He was able to arrange
that we got dropped off at a special location (rather than the regular stop),
and our contact was there to pick us up.
Amazing. He met us, we grabbed
all our luggage (after a bit of back and forth with the bus guys over whether
it was really ours), and started walking through random streets in Bangladesh
through the dark, jumping over puddles that had formed from the recent storm,
and made it to the house we are staying in.
Such a crazy experience!
I never want to cross the Indian border by bus again. I highly recommend flying out, or even the
train…it’s got to be better than by bus.
Or at least have a local person who can speak the language and tell you
what the heck is going on. Craziness!
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