My first visit to North India
My first visit to the far north of India was in December 2019, just before Covid. My original plan was to take my husband and daughter to South India for a few weeks. One day as we were working in the kitchen, I mentioned to my Tibetan helper that I was planning to go to India in December.
That's when things got interesting. She asked me whether she could come with me to see her son, who was still living there. I was hesitant and then I decided to see it as an opportunity to see a new part of the world and my daughter could experience the snow, which she hadn't seen since she was a year old in Washington State.
Getting there was an adventure. We arrived in Delhi without any issues, we had a few hours before it was time to catch our flight to Dharamshala. After walking around and having some food we went to the Air India counter to check in for our flight. We checked in and were told that we were only allowed 15kg per person, which was problematic as we had a lot of gifts for people. We paid for excess luggage and checked our luggage in.
An hour or so later, I noticed that the flight was no longer listed on the screens around the airport so I went back to the counter to check, only to be told that the flight had been cancelled due to snow in Dharamshala. I asked whether the flight would leave the next day and they said that the snow would be around for several days. I needed to be back in Delhi in 5 days.
I paced back and forth in the airport, trying to come up with a suitable solution. I was concerned as my employee was unable to read or speak much English, so there was no way I could leave her in Delhi. After some time, I heard some people behind me talking about getting a few cars and driving the 12 hours to Dharamshala. It was already getting late in the afternoon and I didn't have any options so I asked whether we could join them. They were happy for us to do so and organised the cars.
By the time the cars arrived at the airport, it was dark. We were all exhausted after travelling from Brisbane to Singapore to Delhi and gratefully piled into the cars after the luggage was loaded on top of the cars. 12 hours drive through Delhi, Haryana State and Punjab with a brief stop for food and one of the roadside restaurants, called Dabaras.
It was a huge relief to know that we would make it to Dharamshala. The whole trip to Dharamshala was planned so that my employee could surprise her son. He knew that my husband, daughter and I were coming but not her. I rang him and asked him to meet me at a specific location. Once we got there and we greeted each other he told me that he wasn't feeling well. I asked what was wrong and he told me that he thought he was hallucinating as his mother was there next to me. It was a great surprise and I was so proud to be a part of it for such a lovely family.
We spent a lovely few days in Dharamshala and then departed for Delhi for a brief visit before heading to Kochi.