Our Crazy Trip to Nainital

This weekend we took a trip to see our friend Esther at a (Christian) Ashram in Nainital. It was a lovely time, although much too brief. It took us about a 14 hour commute each way, leaving us with just a day and a half with Esther.

Esther (on the right) with her parents and sister, Ruth.

The Ashram was in a remote and beautiful place, with green mountain lakes and lots of jungle. Nainital is still in Uttrakhand (same state as Mussoorie), but it still took us a 10+ hour train ride to get there. India is a big, big place; there is no doubt about it. Nainital is so far north that we were nearly in Nepal.

Shortly before we left, Esther's friend, Samson took us to the orphanage that he works at, which was kind of neat. The kids were pretty adorable and seemed happy.













Our trip back to Mussoorie was kind of insane. Dan and I don't actually know how we made it back in time for his Monday classes. First of all, I was really sick. I had a horrendous case of what Indians politely refer to as "lose motion". I had a 2 hour bus ride to survive before we boarded the train (with its blessed and easily accessible bathrooms). It was just our luck (no, really!) that it monsooned on us and we got stuck with a whole ton of other traffic behind a mudslide. The good news is that the mudslide and stopped bus coincided nicely with the worst of my illness and a very nice patch of overgrown jungle. I definitely would not have made it otherwise. After the downpour had stopped and just about the time I was done being awfully sick, some motorcycles and cars started driving over the landslide and eventually our bus was also successful in crossing the obstruction (Dan and I waited for the bus on the other side just to be safe).





The rest of our journey went pretty smoothly, except for 2 little kids that upchucked during our twisty ride down the mountain. We made it to the train station in time for me to be sick some more, somehow got moved from Waitlisted train tickets to each having our own bunk, and reached our stop at about dawn on Monday morning.

Sleeping on the upper bunk of a Sleeper Class train. Riding the train overnight was a first, and a pretty enjoyable way to travel.