Journal Entry: Trial By Fire In India
A firsthand account of the most maddening three days of my backpacking life
What follows is a real journal entry I wrote in May 2023 during my first backpacking trip, when my time in Sri Lanka was coming to a close and I was preparing to head to India. The entry has been edited only here and there for clarity and grammar mistakes.
Though the frequent negative words like “miserable” were used with genuine intent at the time of writing the entry, it is precisely events like the ones recounted below that give me such a profound love of, and (ironically) homesickness for, the backpacking life, as well as the countless local Sri Lankan and Indian people who assisted me, genuinely cared about me, and, by proxy, loved me during this stressful period.
The moment I arrived at the Colombo airport, everything that could possibly go wrong, started to go wrong. And it continued to go wrong up until just yesterday.
I was through security at the Colombo airport when I realized that my e-visa for India hadn’t yet been approved. No worries, I thought, I’ll just get to India and wait in the airport until the visa gets approved, then go through immigration. Not so; I was physically unable to get on the plane, as Sri Lanka emigration needed to see my Indian visa before they’d let me board the plane.
So I waited and waited, but ended up missing my flight, because the visa wasn’t approved in time. I figured I’d just have to aimlessly wait in Negombo (the nearest city) until the visa was approved, and then hastily book a new flight. The only really stressful thing was that my Sri Lanka visa ended the next day—so the Indian visa needed to be approved by then, otherwise I’d be overstaying in Sri Lanka.
I figured I would do some work, so I went to a little restaurant, ordered an egg and cheese kottu, and started writing. Then out of nowhere, after never having had a single problem, my laptop screen started uncontrollably flickering and these gross corrupted horizontal and vertical bars appeared. I tried to keep working, but it became impossible.
At this point I started to get a little nervous. If my laptop went out, I’d have no way to make income, which could put me, at the very least, in an inconvenient spot. I had virtually zero money in my checking account, and almost no cash.
A visit to a tech repair shop nearby was fruitless, so I went to an ATM, took out the last of my money, and caught a tuk-tuk to a small guesthouse near to the airport. The lady told me not to keep my bags near the window, in case someone on the road saw my stuff through the window and wanted to steal it. That whole night was miserable and restless, but finally, after checking and checking and checking, my Indian visa was approved at around 8:00 am.
I hurriedly booked a new flight for 2:00 pm that day, got a ride to the airport, and had yet another hiccup with my visa: these two ladies at the check-in counter noticed a problem with the text on the e-visa PDF, and spent five or ten minutes talking together before telling me everything was okay. I finally went through emigration and made it onto the flight. Here I should note that my Indian e-visa was for 180 days; this will become important as the story progresses.
I arrived in Chennai for my connecting flight, made it through immigration, went back into the airport at the domestic terminal, and boarded the final leg to New Delhi. Keep in mind that at this point I was relieved, but still very stressed about my laptop, work, and money.
Immediately upon arriving in New Delhi, disaster struck. I couldn’t purchase a SIM card in the airport, so I told the guy at the taxi booth to just take me to a place in the city with a lot of cheap guesthouses. He told me to go to Paharganj—so we went to Paharganj, which was just utter madness (more on this in a bit).
I exited the taxi at a convenience store with an Airtel sign, asked the man at the stand if he did indeed have SIM cards, and as he nodded yes I reached for my phone in my pocket, only to feel the dreaded softness of my pants and leg only. No phone. I turned around and literally watched the taillights of my taxi disappear into the madness of Paharganj.
After everything with my low checking account and my computer malfunctioning, now I started to get somewhat seriously panicked. This was crazy. Was the universe saying I shouldn’t be in India?
I asked the guy at the SIM card place to use his phone to try and call the airport taxi booth. His friend let me check Google Maps, but I couldn’t find it. They told me to check with the police, and I did, but they were useless. The police officer did suggest I just go back to the airport, which is what I did.
The taxi driver I found to take me back there wanted to charge me 1,200 INR, which is over double the standard rate. By refusing to engage in his inflated offers and walking away, I got him down to 600, and we left. The driver had a hard time finding the domestic arrivals terminal at the airport, but finally he did.
The guy at the airport taxi booth was amazingly helpful. He remembered me and really cared about helping me. He gave me the taxi number and told me to watch for the taxi to return. Eventually, my original taxi driver himself came up to me, grinning ear to ear, and handed me my phone. I was so grateful I could have cried, and wanted to hug him.
I took another taxi back to Paharganj. It was a cesspool of garbage, poor people, loud people, tuk-tuks, cars, and horns—my goodness, the sound of all the honking horns. It felt really unsafe at some points, and I actually walked out of a guesthouse at one point when I was asked for my passport, because I just felt uneasy about it—something I’d never done before. I met a guy at a travel agency who said he could get me a good room for 800 INR, so I accepted.
We walked through a maze of tiny, rat-infested, garbage-covered streets. People were everywhere. It seems that no matter where you go in New Delhi, people are everywhere. Some men were just ceaselessly carrying construction junk in baskets on their heads, out of a nearby site. I can’t even imagine how little they were paid for their labor.
We finally got the guesthouse, and I checked into a room on the ground floor. I believe it was as I checked in here that I realized that the idiot immigration officer at the Chennai airport had stamped my passport with a 30-day tourist visa, even though my e-visa (which I showed him!) said I had 180 days. I was seriously annoyed—it was just one thing after another in this place. Now when I tried to leave on June 26th, it would look like I was overstaying my visa, even though I wasn’t. This needed to be taken care of as soon as possible, so I could just enjoy my time in India.
I went my room, pooped, wiped with my left hand because there was nothing else to use, showered, and went to bed. I still didn’t have a SIM card (which meant no cell service), I needed to fix my laptop, I needed to figure out how to extend my visa stamp, and I needed to get money out of an ATM (I literally had only 20 INR, which is $0.25, left at this point in cash). But I felt relieved, because I really had avoided disaster with my phone.
The next day I went to an ATM, got money, then went to a SIM card booth. It took an hour to set up my SIM card, and get this: because my visa stamp said I had to leave by June 19th, the guy legally was not allowed to extend my service period beyond that point. So now on June 19th, unless I could get a new stamp, I would have no cell coverage.
I checked out of my hotel, ate, and took a taxi to the New Delhi Field Office (the American Embassy). I didn’t know where else to go. They in turn told me to go to the FRRO office, so I went there. After waiting in a miserable room for my number to be called, the crabby guy at the desk had to admit that the immigration officer had made a mistake, and told me to go to the “F sector” or something like that.
I found the F sector, and I was told to email my problem to them (the office I was literally standing in) as that was standard procedure. I insisted on talking to someone that day though, and eventually talked to the manager, who looked Chinese for some reason. He told me his boss wasn’t there, and so I couldn’t get a physical stamp today, but he assured me I would get an email that said the FRRO acknowledges the mistake, and I could come to Delhi on June 25th or 26th and get a corrected stamp. I didn’t like it, but there was nothing else I could do. I absolutely despise these government places.
Then I went to the Apple Store in Saket, and decided to just buy a new MacBook Air. Everything went great with that, and I left with both laptops, intending to sell the old one. An Apple Store employee had recommended I try Cashify, so I took a taxi there. Of course, once I arrived I was told that, for some reason, only phones could be sold in-store—laptops had to be sold online. I was not even surprised at that point—I just thought, of course.
The employees at Cashify told me to try Nehru Market—and oh boy, I was not prepared for this place.
Imagine two very wide streets, enclosed on either side by huge, rundown buildings that stretched nearly as far as the eye could see. Shop after shop after shop in these buildings were laptop and phone repair and maintenance shops. You go inside one and there’d be old MacBooks stacked on shelves, motherboards laying around on dusty desks, and technicians working in horribly crowded spaces.
I literally just went down the line, into shop after shop, showing my computer and trying to get the best price. Some people offered only 6,000 INR (around $70) and one guy offered 15,000, which I foolishly turned down.
After close to an hour of trying, I found one shop where the guys seemed interested. I followed one employee from that store as he took my laptop to another store and had a different technician look at it, came back to the original store, then turned around and brought it back to the same technician again to check something else. Finally, after numerous tests, after them offering 15,000 and me accepting only for them to then rescind the offer, I threatened to just leave.
They finally agreed to 15,000 INR ($180) and told me to go to a print shop to get a photocopy of my passport and the original laptop bill from Best Buy, which I’d pulled up from my old emails.
I was incredibly stressed at the print shop, because I’d foolishly left my backpack (with my new MacBook!), my guitar, and my old MacBook at the laptop store, and I was worried they’d steal it. The guy at the print shop charged me 10 INR for the printing, and when I told him I only had a 500 INR bill, he said he didn’t have change. I literally looked right down into his change drawer and said something like, “Really? Can you just give me 400 back?” Once he actually began looking though his change, it turned out he did have 490.
He gave this to me and I left, breathing a sigh of relief upon seeing my stuff still in the laptop store. I wrote my own ghetto contract under the employee’s dictation, signed it, collected my money, and got the heck out of there.
From there, I took a miserable 1.5 hour tuk-tuk ride to the Laxmi Holidays bus stand, where I’d booked a night bus to Shimla. I’d breathed in so much dust and exhaust during this day, and so much of it had settled on my skin (and I’d sweated so much in the 110-degree heat), that if I just ran my nails across my arm, they came up caked with black stuff.
We arrived at the bus stand. This was far and above the saddest and most miserable section of Delhi I’d ever seen. Pure concrete dust and mud as far as the eye could see made up the “sidewalk,” with broken down buildings just behind the sidewalk. At one point I stepped in a pile of black, nameless mud, and then into the toxic concrete dust; this coated nearly half of my shoe in it. Kids and dogs played in the dust and rubble. It was disgusting and heartbreaking.
Finally the bus left, and I arrived in Shimla the next morning. Shimla was literally a different world, with beautiful mountains and trees everywhere. I spent the day working and taking care of logistical problems at a beautiful little restaurant called Café 103. I believe it was then that I received an email from the Delhi FRRO that said:
“After checking your documents it has been found that you arrived in India via Chennai airport. Hence, the said correction would be made only at Chennai Airport. You may please contact FRRO Chennai for further necessary action.”
Annoyed? Majorly. Surprised? Nope! I’m currently in a massive email battle with them, and I absolutely refuse to pay an overstay fine at the airport if I’m given one. I will also probably go back to the FRRO in Delhi on June 25th and make a massive stink there until I get a new stamp.
After working at Café 103, I showered with a bucket and cold water in a bathroom at the bus terminal, and then boarded the HRTC bus to Reckong Peo, which is right next to Kalpa, my ultimate destination.
The bus ride was miserable. We were packed in like sardines, and it was impossible to sleep, not because the seat was uncomfortable (which it was), but because the roads were so curvy and the guy drove so fast, that unless I held onto the handle on the back of the seat in front of me, I would slide out of my seat and onto the ground. As we started the trip though, I had some music playing in my AirPods, and I was taken aback as rain started pouring and huge streaks of lightning flashed in the dark sky above the mountains. For a few moments I had real goosebumps at the sheer power of nature.
We arrived in Reckong Peo at 4:15 am, and it was absolutely surreal. I got out of the bus, began the 20-minute walk to my hostel to the noise of howling dogs, and just gazed at the immensity of the mountains, which were covered in snow and ever-so-slightly illuminated by the imminent sunrise. At one point I just closed my eyes and basked in the silence. After New Delhi, this was magical. I arrived at the hostel and stumbled into bed at 5:00 am without even brushing my teeth.
Today I made my way to Kalpa, which is just ridiculously beautiful. I just saw the most vivid rainbow I’ve ever seen in my entire life, which would have been striking enough even without the snowcapped mountains in the background. This hostel is in the most perfect spot, with unbelievable views of the mountains, the apple orchards, and the actual city proper of Kalpa, which is clustered on top of a nearby hill.
Finally, I’m feeling like I can relax and take on India.