Staying In India During Covid-19? Not As Simple As I Thought

India’s borders were closed and I knew that everything was going to change, but I set myself a goal of not returning to Israel. I started talking with an agent, who managed to extend a visa for someone who was staying illegally in India. At the same time I was also talking to a different agent in an attempt to extend my visa based on the Indian citizenship that my mother has. Both options failed the next day. Then a friend of Elona and mine suggested that we fly to Sri Lanka and pass the time there until everything calmed down. This was the only option I had left, we had already come to finalize a plane ticket, but suddenly my cousin arrived and told us that he had heard that some people had managed to extend their visa by submitting forms on a government website. Immediately I tried to send the forms, but without success. Luckily I located an agent at Pushkar who helped me with this process.

Every day the agent told me that there would be an answer the following day. Every day I told Elona that the next day we would go to Kasol and every morning we packed up all our stuff and got ready in anticipation of leaving all that mess behind and moving on. So slowly from a huge group of people, only Elona and I were left. I could not leave Pushkar because the agent had told me that I needed to stay in the same state, otherwise I would have to open a new application and as I was already considered an illegal tourist, I did not want to take risks. Luckily Elona stayed with me. We were exhausted and upset, but suddenly after a week I received an email stating that the only thing left to do in the process was to pay and then my visa would be extended. So I paid and we booked a night bus to Delhi on the same day.

We left Pushkar excitedly for our journey that turned out to be much longer than we had expected.

We arrived in Delhi at five in the morning and waited a little over 12 hours for a connecting bus to Kasol. Rumors had been circulating that they were going to close the border crossings between the states within India, but the agent in Delhi with whom we had booked the bus to Kasol promised that it would only happen the next day. So very excited, we got on the bus to Kasol.

After an eight-hour drive we reached a police checkpoint. They explained to us that the borders of the state were closed and that there was no entrance. They brought us a new bus (plus the fee to pay) that would take us back to Delhi. Elona was asleep and I did not know how to wake her up with the news. I thought of all the ways we could try to sneak into Kasol, maybe wait there at the border and wait until the police went or stay at some village in the area, but when I woke Elona up and presented our options, she told me she was going back to Delhi and that she hoped I would go with her.

It was the middle of the night and I didn’t see a real way that I could get into Kasol. I felt defeated and the thought that I would probably have to return to Israel in a few days began to seep through. The ride back was really hard. I always trust my timing so knowing that I missed the entry by just one day because of my visa seemed illogical to me.

We booked a hotel in advance so we could go straight into it, but the dropping point was an hour’s drive from the hotel. We did not know it and we had to take a rickshaw with an Indian who just mumbled all the way, it was very cold. When we arrived to our hotel the receptionist wanted us to pay double for early check-in to the room. We demanded to talk with the manager but he vehemently refused, so we just started to tell him everything that we had been through. He felt so bad and honestly apologized, he told us he was the manager and that he would let us into the room then and also gave us breakfast with no extra charge.

We decided not to talk about our options until after we had eaten and rested.

We had received an update that in a few days a curfew would start across India. The prices of airline tickets for the following days were expensive. We realized we would probably be in India for another two weeks until there would be a flight at a normal price. We started thinking about the different options we had even though we had not yet rested or eaten. When we talked about going to Kasar Devi for the curfew, we started to get really excited. Within a few moments I was talking to friends who had managed to get into Kasar Devi that morning and Elona started looking for taxi partners. When she found a partner, we re-packed our things and got a taxi towards Kasar without thinking twice about it.

After a few hours of non-stop driving it got dark and towards midnight our driver said that the ride on the mountain was dangerous in the night and that it would be better to make a stop of a few hours until the sun came up. For a long time we were looking for a place that would agree to let us have a room. We even tried to book a place through a website, but no place agreed to accept us. Finally after two hours we managed to obtain a room and even then, after half an hour someone from the hotel came and tried to make us leave.

We started the drive at 4 am, the scenery changed really quickly. It was reminiscent of Vattakanal, but very different. We drove through a forest with a river that accompanied the road. The driver stopped at a local restaurant to drink “chai” on the way and I went to sit on a side path overlooking the river. I watched amazing birds, some that I already recognized and some that I saw for the first time and listened to their chirping and the rushing river. I could not understand how I would be able to spend two weeks in quarantine, between four walls after the feeling of freedom that I had felt there. As we continued our journey, the Himalayan mountains suddenly appeared before our eyes, at the bottom of which was a carpet of clouds. It was just beautiful.

We continued up the mountain until we were stopped by a police checkpoint where we were told that we could no longer enter Kasar Devi.

We stopped on the side, for about an hour, begging the border-guards and trying to convince them to let us in. They vehemently refused and told us it was not possible. Hearing those words I was really surprised, in India everything is possible, but everything we tried to say did not help. We decided to give up, went back a bit on the trail and settled on one of the rooftops that were in the area to soak up the beauty of the Himalayas. Below the roof we were sitting on was a group of children. As soon as they saw us they started washing their hands and walking away from us. I was in shock, on the one hand we were in the middle of a village in India, full of colors and peace, while on the other hand Covid-19 at its best was trampling on our trip.

After a while we decided to start driving towards Delhi. Our travel partner was really upset that we were returning to Delhi. We decided to help him and stopped a taxi full of Indian tourists in order for him to join them to Kasar Devi, we gave him a mask, told him to put on a hat and keep his head down. We wanted to wait and make sure he managed to get in before we continued driving so we stopped at the side of the road. Meanwhile we went for a walk until we found a rock to sit on with a view of the Himalayas.

When he informed us that he had managed to get in, we decided that we would try too, but this time no taxi of Indian tourists stopped, only annoying and weird ones stopped. At some point a crowd formed around us and our taxi driver became stressed, he urged us to get in the taxi or send him away. We decided to give up the dubious opportunity, got in the taxi and headed back to Delhi.

So it turned out that after a few consecutive days on the road we returned to the starting point, just a few hours before the lockdown started.

We spent the days of the curfew mostly with friends who were waiting with us for the flight. The truth is that Indians surprised me with their handling of the disease. Suddenly in Delhi, the most polluted city, there was a guard at each hotel door who made sure you disinfected your hands before entering. Air pollution in the area also dropped rapidly.

But at some point the situation really got worse. The hotel I was staying in had no ways left to feed us. The supermarkets had no food left, but only snacks. Making a delivery was almost impossible as the orders were made on the website, which sent an automatic payment code to a phone number to which the credit was linked and we all had an Indian SIM with a different number. There were times I called a restaurant to beg that they send us food and agree to be paid in cash. There was a period when we ate one meal a day, the rest of the day I would fantasize about different foods and send them in lists to my mother, so that she would prepare and bring them to us in quarantine when we arrived in the country.

On the day of our flight we discovered that we were the only flight scheduled for that day, the airport was full of Israelis. The atmosphere was different, everyone played with all kinds of jangling accessories, some played with frisbees, some played music and still others sang and danced to the sounds of the music they played on their speakers. It was obvious that no one at the airport wanted to go home. The check-in process for the flight was the strangest I have ever experienced, untidy, disorganized and quite amateurish.

I didn’t start to take it all in until we started to land in Israel, I was not ready for it and I was sure I would be able to stay in India. I knew that things happened for a reason and that I had to return to Israel, probably so that I could return to India one more time. One day I will complete everything I missed, but next time with the knowledge I have gained. Everything is accurate and I am always in the right place at the right time.

But the truth is that I just did not think I would fall in love with a country, especially not in India. I did not think it was at all possible to fall in love with a country in this way, but it just has everything in it. India has a place for everyone, things work out in a crazy way and everyone you meet along the way is your friend, even if you do not know him yet. I am thankful that I at least got a taste of that amazingly vibrant country before the world went crazy and that I chose to fly to India when l did.