The Surrender Project: Day 13: Another Bus
Day 13 was shaping up to be a travel day. Travel days as a backpacker are a pretty normal part of life, and typically consist of finding some time on a bus or a train to relax, maybe watch a show, catch up on sleep, or anything you want when you get some alone time. I woke up and packed up all of my things, the dreaded part of travel days. Checkout was at 10:30 and I walked downstairs to a bit of a surprised look on the hostel workers face. Normally she would see me walk downstairs around this time wiping a sleepy look off my face as I check to see if I can extend another night. I make a joke about it to her and she said she didn’t believe me yesterday when I told her it would be my last night. Well, here we are, a ticket and a place to stay booked in Udaipur all planned out. It was the most planned out thing I have had since arriving in India. My bus wasn’t until 4:55 so I put my stuff in the bag area, knowing I would be spending most of the day writing my blog from the day before and prepping some things before the bus.
Vincent comes down the stairs and says good morning and asks me when my bus is. I tell him and he then asks how long of a ride it is. Well, let’s check it out and see, shall we? I take out my phone to get the details of the bus, wanting to also ensure I know exactly where it is picking me up. To my utmost surprise my bus ticket doesn’t say “Udaipur" it says “Jaipur.” Making this 15 hour bus ride actually a 25 hour bus ride. I swear under my breath, knowing this is quite the fuck up and realizing this means I will not get to stay in my $4 a night private room which I was really excited about. I go to the booking.com email to cancel the stay. Yet again, to my utmost surprise I also do not see “One night in Udaipur” but “One night in Jaipur.” I look at Vincent and go, “well, I guess I am going to Jaipur instead because I somehow miss-booked the bus and the hostel for Jaipur.” Now, these names are pretty similar so it would be easy to write this off as just a coincidence that I booked both of them for the wrong city, but where is the fun in that? I am instead going to believe in the magic and totally take this as a sign that I wasn’t supposed to go to Udaipur at all, that Jaipur is the spot for me. There may even be an argument here that I am just lazy and didn’t want to go through the effort of cancelling both and rebooking. If this was any other trip I would do that without too much concern. But this is a trip focused on surrender to whatever life brings, and life is bringing me to Jaipur. A bit later I was on the phone with a friend from back home and he goes, “well why were you going to Udaipur in the first place?” And I didn’t have a concrete answer besides what I explained in yesterday’s blog, because my favorite photographer took a cool picture there and that it was listed in my notes app along with 14 other cities, so why not? There is something beautiful in this though, something that I have been wanting to bring up at some point but haven’t fully dove into it. At least I do not think I have, at this point in the blog I struggle to remember exactly what I have said and what I have taken as a note to write about in the future. So if this is redundant or preachy, my bad. Anyway, the beauty in this is a little something I like to call expectations. “Expectations are evil” is something I recently wrote to somebody as I explained why I think they detract from the present. I had zero expectations for what the following days were going to give me, only a city that I knew absolutely nothing about. So, when the bus mistake happened I wasn’t bummed out on anything, it was easy to take it in stride and just switch plans to go to Jaipur instead. Expectations rob us from being in the present and appreciating all the small and wonderful things we get to experience every second of the day. The beauty of traveling with zero expectations is that everything I get to witness feels special and I notice I am taking everything in more than if I had already had an image of what it was supposed to be. For example let us say you are on a quick weekend vacation with your partner in California. You have never been to California before, let alone to the ocean, but you keep hearing about how the sunsets are incredible there. You are so excited to see a famous Californian sunset! The first day you stayed inland more, but your last night you get to the beach early and have a nice spot. You are antsy with excitement for vibrant oranges, pinks, yellows, and reds to streak the sky. You just want to see a colorful sky, that is what you love most about sunsets. However, a storm starts to roll in and the sun gets blocked out, leading to a grey sky with just a tiniest hint of orange. You are disappointed and bummed out that you didn’t get your magical sunset, and it leaves a bit of a damper on the evening. Your expectations were not met, not met by something that is completely and 100% out of your control. The expectations for a colorful sunset took away your ability to see all the other special things happening on that beach. You missed out on noticing how as the sun dips under the horizon hundreds of little crabs start scurrying across the sand. Or the ability to witness rain fall at an angle out of a single cloud from miles and miles away. Or how the weather is so perfect you do not even feel the air on your skin. Or how the smell of the ocean in the wind can be so comforting and soothing, or the sound of small breaking waves. I could go on and on, and obviously this story is a bit exaggerated, but you get the point. Every moment if we stop and look around we can witness so many mini miracles happening around us, so much beauty and life everywhere. I think expectations take us away from these moments, away from the present and set us up for disappointment. A good example for when I let my expectations take me away from something was in March of 2020. I was studying abroad in Barcelona and Covid had just set in. Everybody was being sent home from overseas and it was a bit of a chaotic time. At this point I was pretty out of the loop and thought Covid would just blow over in a few weeks or so. Anyway, I already had tickets to go to Dublin, Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day and meet up with my brothers and a friend. Well, without going too deep into this, the day before St. Patrick’s Day Dublin closed all bars and restaurants, leaving us to buy a bottle of Jameson and drink in the hotel room. While we were a bit bummed out about it not being the party that we were expecting, I now am beyond grateful for the experience. Around 10:00 pm on St. Patrick’s Day we decided to go on a walk around the city. We didn’t see a single person. We walked the busiest streets right outside of the world famous pubs and didn’t see a soul. I remember being a bit amazed by it all, but also bummed because it would have been so fun. Looking back now, I think we experienced something that nobody else in the world can say they have (besides the handful of people who probably walked around that we didn’t see). Complete silence on St. Patrick’s Day night in Dublin, Ireland. Kind of a wild story, and something I let expectations cloud the significance of it at the time. Maybe this wasn’t my best expectations story I could have come up with, but the point still stands. Now, there is a fine line and an argument that some expectations are good and can hold us accountable. I agree with this. I think when we have expectations for things out of our control is when they are bad. Expectations to accomplish 20 tasks in a day, yet my brother who I haven’t talked to in two months calls and we talk for three hours, then me feeling disappointed in myself for not completing the 20 tasks. That is out of our control and in reality, probably a better day. Maybe it isn’t expectations that are bad, but not adapting and being fluid with them as the day/week/life takes us in directions we couldn’t anticipate. I don’t know, I am just a kid (does 25 still count as a kid?) Who is 20 hours into a bus ride, what do I know? Maybe do an experiment to test this out. Next time you find yourself disappointed about something, ask yourself if it is because it didn’t live up to what you expected? Or is there another reason? My phone/email/DM’s are always open and I would love to hear your outcomes of this. And just be aware of how often we put little expectations on things. It is constant, and something I am trying to be aware of and how it leads to feeling something went well or not. Oftentimes when I realize I feel a way about something it is based around my expectations. And then I come to the conclusion that it just is what it is, not good or bad.
Hmm, where was I? Oh, about to head out the door and get breakfast. I get a late breakfast and a tea, catch up on the phone with a friend, and head back. I quickly recapped the breakfast because I have more exciting things from this day and I am eager to get to those. I am also going to fast forward the next almost four hours. They consisted of writing, editing photos, and getting food with Vincent one last time. Now we find ourselves back at the hostel around 3:45. Vincent and I hang out for a bit longer and talk about childhoods and growing up, who our families are to us, and what it was like for us as kids. I want to give a quick shoutout to Vincent for hanging out the last few days. Vincent is excellent at asking questions that spur long conversations. There was a point right before I left where I made a comment about me talking too much the last few days, he just gave me a smile and said it was nice, no need to apologize. And then probably followed it up with some smart-ass comment or joke. He comes across as a confident person, confident in his hobbies and interests, and enjoys to share them as well as genuinely curious to learn about mine. Anyway, shoutout Vincent, until next time. After I said goodbye I went downstairs and double checked the bus location with the hostel staff, they confirmed it was the right spot. I walked out of the alley and onto a road and called an Uber, which is just a Tuk Tuk. It wasn’t loading and I kept trying but eventually a hostel staff person saw me and goes, “you haven’t left yet?” With a bit of panic in her voice. I the immediately wave down a Tuk Tuk and just assume I will be paying extra because it is on a meter. At this point it is 4:22, and it says a 12 minute ride, bus should pick me up at 4:55 so we are chilling on time. However, I am starting to get just a little prickling in the back of my neck, a bit of worry about the bus. I remind myself that I did everything I could, except maybe giving myself a bit more time. It might be a tiny bit of PTSD from missing the last bus with no explanation as to why which gave me the feeling of not having control over the situation this time. After the 12 minutes the Tuk Tuk tells me this is the bus stop, yet we are not where I need to be. He doesn’t speak English and just points, so for some reason I just nod and pay him. It ended up being $0.53, cheaper than the Uber, that is a win in my book and I tell myself that was the reason the Uber wasn't loading. Like really Henry, you think the world is intervening your Uber app to save you $0.13? It still feels like a win, but I do not have much time to think as I am half a kilometer away from where I am supposed to go and it is 4:35 now. I start jogging a bit, as much as one can jog with a backpack on their front and back, with untied shoes. I get there in time and finally breathe, asking two different people if this is the right stop, they both say yes. At this point I take a seat, but never really settle in. Something just feels off. Maybe it’s because there are no other people with backpacks or any types of bags, which feels weird if the bus is 24 or so hours long. I go up to a group of guys and show them my email and ask about the bus. One guy says he doesn’t think this is right and to call the number, but he says start walking up the road, so I trust him and start walking as I dial. No answer. Dial the next number. No answer. At this point I am starting to get a little bit stressed as I am running around and nobody seems to know where I need to go. I ask a security guard in front of a huge building, he says its on the other side of the highway, but that doesn’t feel right either. Why would I get picked up on the side of the road going the opposite direction? This “road” has five lanes going both ways, you can’t exactly just go check the other side. I then walk to a Tuk Tuk driver and ask if he knows, he says I am in the wrong spot and to get in his tuk and he will take me there. This seems like a pretty big risk as it is now eight minutes past the time I was supposed to get picked up. Another tuk driver comes up and asks what the fuss is about, I then ask him where he thinks I am supposed to go, and he says call the number. I think it is important to note that when I say, “and he says call the number” it isn’t exactly a smooth translation. It is a lot of hand signs, “what?”s, pointing, and anything else we can do to get the message across. This one was easy, he pointed at my phone and then made the call sign. I tell him no answer. He tries calling. No answer. I would like to pretend I was cool as a cucumber this whole time with no frustration, completely in zen, and just “go with the flow.” I, however, was not. I really didn’t want to miss this bus and the fact that nobody has any clue where I am supposed to go and I cannot get ahold of the bus driver is driving me nuts. As we have no success I walk to the next tuk tuk driver, and might have not-so-quietly mumbled, “what the actual fuck dude. This is fucking stupid! They just have a stop nobody fucking knows about!?” I am perturbed. The next tuk tuk driver miraculously gets ahold of the bus driver and they talk for a bit. This guy speaks zero English and just picked up on what the other tuk tuk drivers said. At this point it is 5:11 and my hope for catching the bus is falling fast. He gets off the phone and shakes his head, talking to me but I have no idea what he is saying. Did he just say, “no bus?” He does the hand gesture where we waves a flat palm over his throat, like to signal “dead” or “no.” Well that is just great. He points in the back of his tuk tuk and tells me to get in. I hesitate for a second before just saying “fuck it” and getting in the back. My thought process is that he was told something about the bus and he knows something that he cannot communicate with me. What is the worst that can happen? I miss my bus that already is gone? Unlike before when I didn’t get in the dudes tuk tuk, this one felt right, there seemed to be a basis behind it and I was going to trust everything that was happening. We take off and start heading north, at least that is a good sign. At this point I am now in the middle of heavy traffic and there is nothing I can actively do, so I pause for a moment and check in with myself. I take a few deep breaths and just take in the situation, feeling the need to do a quick video recap so I do not forget what is happening. Doing my best to surrender to the moment and let some of the tension from the stress go. The tuk tuk ride takes about 30 minutes before he pulls off the busy road and stops at this 7’x7’ shack that is a part of a larger building. It is a travel agency, and he takes me up to the guy. Pretty quickly the stress comes back, assuming he took me here to buy another ticket. I talk to the guy and show him my ticket, and he just says tells me to wait, that a bus will be here in 30 minutes. I chill on the curb for a bit and finally relax fully. The bus comes after a bit and I hop on, but they do not put me into a sleeper compartment but into the back where there is like an extra waiting space? He tells me, “sit. 20 minutes.” Again, what the fuck is happening? I just sit and go with the flow, no point in trying to argue with a dude about not having a seat when we don’t speak the same language. After 35 minutes we get off and two local guys come over to me and fill me in. That was not the actual bus, we are going to wait here now for the next bus, should be maybe 5 minutes. A full hour and a half later the actual bus shows up and we are finally on the road. Just leaving at 8:00 pm instead. I finally can exhale completely now that this fiasco is over. Plus I am back in a sleeper bus, an excellent spot to do some reflecting on the previous events.
When I sit and just focus on my breath for a moment, I realize I was carrying stress from the last couple hours. I felt it in a weird spot in my lower back. It also made me realize that this is something we do not do enough, release stress. We sit in it all the time as a society, yet how often do we sit and just breathe it out and consciously release the energy that we are holding? This is one of the benefits of vipassana meditation, it allows you to be aware of stresses or other energies that our bodies are storing and be able to release them. I do not know much about this space, so just be aware that everything I say is based on a thing or two I have heard that has resonated with me. That and just trusting the times I have felt energies that I have held onto. I do not know, but this makes sense to me. Stress can cause cancer right? Well, that means holding onto it cannot be good for us. And we experience stress a lot, even if it is a small amount from trying to track down a bus in India. Where does that go if we not release it? I am sure most of it goes away, but we stay uptight and it festers. So, I chose to release it, to breathe into it and feel it dissipate. I no longer felt the tingle in my lower right back area. Another thing I thought about is that I like stress. I know sometimes I hear meditation and some of these practices are to get level headed, where you don’t feel the highs and lows as much. I want the highs and lows to an extent, I feel overall I am at solid spot when it comes to not letting things bother me. But this was fun, the stress around trying to find my bus and feeling the intensity of the situation, of running up to strangers, or checking my watch to make sure I still have time. I like the come down of it, the feeling getting on that bus and chuckling to myself about being able to experience this whole situation in the first place. I want to live with the intensity that life has to offer at times. Yeah, I could be super nonchalant in that situation and all “it is what it is” but sometimes I want the intensity. I am an intense person, something that a handful of people have told me, but I love it. I like the highs of feeling stressed at work and having 10 things you need to do before the day is over. It gives me energy and puts me into a flow state sometimes, it is where I can operate at my best. When the restaurant was packed back in CO, and there were four people asking me for things as I run back to the kitchen, I love the feeling of running around, and dropping stuff at tables and making a quick witty comment and moving on. It is fun. I also like to feel the sadness of disappointment when something doesn’t go right. But it is again the balance of feeling them but letting them go. Tap into the stress of the bus, but when it is over release it and allow it to go. When we are high on stress over and over and we don’t release it, the high flips and we crash. There is an equilibrium to it all, be aware of it and respect it. I think it is healthy to feel the feels and tap into them. When you are crying, freaking let it out and bawl if you want. Tap into the sadness you are feeling. Tap into the happiness. Feel the depths of the moments, and then release. Obviously it is easier said than done. Just something to be aware of. I enjoyed the ability to tap into the stress, even if it meant an F-bomb or two. I know this isn’t a crazy example, that there are moments in life where the stress is more real, more intense, more ramifications around it. I guess try to tap into it? Allow it to push you for a bit, feel the cortisol hit and see what you can get done with it. But no matter what it is, find some time to release it. Maybe you meditate, maybe you go on a run, maybe you punch a punching bag. But whatever it is it seems to make sense to me to be intentional in the releasing of the stress. So how do you release stress or emotions? Well, it sounds pretty simple but all I do is become aware of them. Let us use today and the bus situation as an example. This was not that crazy of a story, I am sure most readers can have some relation to being late to a bus or trying to figure out transportation, or the ticket counter is giving you a hard time at the airport. Things like this happen. Today after the situation was settled and I got on the bus I sat still for a bit. I realized, “I was stressed during that” because at times during the process I told myself, “I am a little stressed.” All I did was notice it. I felt the stress, I put awareness on the fact that I was stressed, and then I let it go. This sounds so beyond simple, but it is rare for us to actually do it. You had a busy day at work, a meeting went late so you missed a lunch appointment. You felt stress during it but then continue on the day and go home. Maybe unwind how you normally do. Did you ever actually sit and realize that you felt a bit stressed that you missed that appointment? I think this is applicable with all emotions. It is why I am realizing it is important to feel them, whatever they are. I was annoyed today, and I allowed myself to feel annoyed after I was aware I was annoyed. I hope this is making sense, and again, I have no education in this whatsoever, this is just what I have heard so I do it and honestly it freaking works. The magic is in the awareness. Take a step back and just be aware of your emotions, your feelings, your thoughts, and watch them release. It is like if you do a guided meditation on YouTube oftentimes the guide will tell you to just realize that you are thinking a thought when your mind wanders. What happens? The thought disappears and you can go back to focusing on your breath. All you did was go back a step and realize that you were thinking, in other words: provided awareness to the thought itself. Awareness is a wonderful tool. While I have no education in this I have read a number of books that mention the power of awareness, this is not an original idea. Anyway, give it a go, and let me know if it works for you. Last thing, how do you practice becoming more aware of how you are feeling in the situation? Like how in the middle of running around was I able to notice that I was feeling a little bit stressed and provide awareness to my annoyance? Meditation. That is one of the main reasons I meditate, and it is a really fun feeling to be able to notice the benefits of it. Because this thing, this awareness thing, really is life changing.
I think I might leave it at that. I could talk about my little sleeper quadrant and how we stopped and got dinner. How I chugged a glass of buttermilk because the Indian men I sat and ate with ordered one for me, and they all chugged theirs. But for now I think I will leave the rest of the bus stories for tomorrow. Thanks for reading and reflecting.
