Ni Dieu Ni Maitre

It took 2 busses to go the 30km to the big city, and once again, thanks to the kindness of strangers, I made it easily. A middle aged woman on bus one asked me where I was going and led me to what was also her bus a block and a half away. Upon arrival, right on the bank of the mighty Brahmaputra River, she met her friend and the two of them took one of my bags each and lugged them up and down the stairs of a pedestrian overpass to a hotel in a purely pedestrian market.

Bicycle rickshaws are still in use in all the amazing traffic here.

This hotel up a flight of stairs, was not available for foreigners, and so out through the throngs, lugging my bags to get a tuk-tuk. We went all over the place for some reason, through endless traffic jams and pollution to a very poor hotel, which I had to accept.

Coming down on the elevator from my spartan room I walked along the white ceramic floor toward the desk, not seeing an unmarked step down, white on white… blam I wound up sprawled on the floor, landing on my knees and elbows. I was able to shake this off after a bit and pursue my goal of getting a new sim card in my phone. But once again, this was not possible. I was finally directed to the Airtel offices across town… back into the traffic jam.

Everything’s at a standstill, as a train moves through the center of town.

At Airtel, I had my passport and visa photographed and copied, filled out detailed forms, had my picture taken, was at least not fingerprinted, and quite a while later I had a working phone. Now I managed to book a nice homestay on a quiet lane. Once there, sent out some laundry and on a web search discovered that the 30 day e-Visa was not extendible. Why? Answer: It’s India. Next day, a trip to the State Bank to try to get rupees.

In the evenings, I found some quite nice places to eat amidst all the hulabaloo and the near suicidal road crossings. Got another tuk to the bank next day, tried a few ATMs and talked to a bank manager, whose advice was, keep trying. They had 3 ATMs and 9 tries with 2 visa cards hit the jackpot twice. So be it. Couldn’t extend at the homestay, so I moved to another hotel on a long, busy street full of sports related shops, gyms and so on… needed to figure out my next move as Assam state was looking like just more of the same.

I actually stumbled several more times on the dilapidated sidewalks and banged my elbow once again. Decided to head south to Meghalaya state and a change of scenery. I was unaware as to how much of a change…

The Brahmaputra from the bus stop, stock image as I forgot to take it myself on arrival.