Before Walter and Hilde reached the next “promised land,” however, they had to overcome a few obstacles. The first one came in form of the Hindu Kush mountain range and, in the middle of it, the infamous Khyber Pass. Nobody with opinions about it advised crossing during nighttime due to the activities of bandits. The transit through the mountains and the pass went through an extremely desolate zone on endless winding roads, where Walter made sure to be in the company of other vehicles at all times.
They left Kabul early one morning and stopped for the night behind the mountains and Khyber Pass, in a valley not too far from the Pakistani border. The next day began with another piece of carnet taken and another country opening up for them. After about six hundred kilometers, they reached Lahore, a city a short distance from the Indian border. The traffic of people, animals, trucks, buses, and very few cars meant slow progress and heightened attention at the steering wheel. It also caused them to reach Lahore after sunset. Walter became lost in the city, more so than he had ever experienced before. In addition to darkness and extremely crowded streets—which looked like a scene from a movie set before Christ—a dust cloud enveloped everything, preventing safe maneuvering at more than ten miles per hour. Scarce street lighting added to visual confusion while they tried to navigate the ancient streets. Luckily, penetrating all of it was a neon sign that not only displayed Urdu letters, but also the word “hotel” in a Western language.
Hilde yelled, pointing with an outstretched arm to the left. “You see it?” At the same time, Walter jerked the steering wheel of the Volkswagen and turned into an entranceway of the hotel with a courtyard.
They took a room and then showers, but that did not supply relief during night temperatures of around ninety degrees and high humidity. Hilde soaked her bed sheet in water, which helped her fall asleep while a ceiling fan whirled on maximum speed.
The next test waited for them at the border with India. Because of the ongoing conflict between the neighboring countries, each traveler had to be scrutinized especially thoroughly. The carnet with its official stamps helped to some extent, allowing them to drive into India.
The spectacle on streets did not change when Walter and Hilde entered the country, unless one added the cows to it, which enriched the atmosphere. In Amritsar, the pair secured a parking place in the garden area of a guesthouse within walking distance of the Harmandir Sahib, the Golden Temple.
Still early in the evening, they walked through a residential area with manicured lawns and large mansions before reaching a hill and going up an easy rise to the top. When the couple arrived at the crown of the hill, they sat on the ground, awestruck. Constructed as a square, the Golden Temple was surrounded by a large lake. Within the temple complex, adjoining the lake and the temple were other white buildings with lots of marble and gold work. The whole development appeared to vibrate. Initially meant to be a place of worship where men and women from all lifestyles and all religions could revere God equally, its daily activities started very early in the morning. The holy scriptures, Siri Guru Granth Sahi, were brought down from their nightly resting place, and then priests read the message of the day. Musical chants and prayers amplified by a speaker system could be heard until late.
The total image reverberated up to Walter and Hilde’s position on the hill. They walked down to the entrance, where everybody left their shoes. The kitchen provided free cooked vegetarian food for everybody who needed to eat. As a result of the uninterrupted prayers, chanting, and meditative music over the loudspeakers and the enormous amount of people inside the complex, they naturally dropped into a trance-like state of consciousness. It was late at night when they left to return to the guesthouse.
What followed could be called training days for their visit in the Indian subcontinent. Getting used to persistent masses of people was the largest part. It happened frequently that where a moment before nobody seemed to be around, suddenly an entire village surrounded the yellow bus. The novelty of this situation, combined with the behavior of the locals, was challenging. The natives customarily simply glanced at the strangers without saying anything or motioning. Every so often Walter and Hilde quickly gathered and secured all their things and left the scene. When that happened, usually someone had pulled the handle of the sliding door, which then opened and had to be closed again and locked, either from the outside or with Hilde working her way back and managing from the inside. Other times, Walter tried funny faces, jokes, guitar playing, or simply talking in German to villagers, sometimes producing smiles on some faces.
The pair learned to locate and use government guesthouses. These facilities had been built for traveling government employees all over the country and stood mostly empty. When they happened to be at an especially pretty location or building, the couple rented a room for the night to feel the luxury of a wide bed with a mosquito net and a solid roof over their heads. In most cases, they just parked the bus within the fenced, guarded property of the guesthouse and enjoyed time in peace without being watched.
On their way to the capital city of the country, New Delhi, they needed to pass through a region where many waterways crossed each other. The monsoon season had left a lot of them enlarged, and some areas stood under water. As the yellow bus made its way through the state of Haryana, it came to a flooded piece of road over which water streamed with a current. Floodwater also stretched on both sides of the road as far as the eye could see. Small islands with trees appeared here and there, but no buildings; this part of the state seemed largely unpopulated.
Walter stopped the bus at the edge of the deluge and asked Hilde, “What do you think?”
They looked around the area and noticed a couple of people with some water buffaloes moving through the water in their direction.
“Mmm,” she said, “this is risky. What do we do if we get stuck? On the other hand, there is no place to return. I can see where the water stops and the road appears again. It is not that far.”
Walter started the engine, put it in first gear, and moved slowly down the road into the water. After a few yards, the water level rose because of a decline in the road, and the engine died. Walter struggled to restart it unsuccessfully and then stopped trying; he did not want to waste the battery as well. Leaving the bus via the driver’s-side door, he stepped into knee-deep water. Hilde took the driver’s seat while Walter tried to push the bus from the back, but it did not move an inch. He waved toward the group of men with buffaloes, and two of them approached and started watching. Straining to stay calm, Walter made the pushing motion against the bus, but the men in their loincloths shook their heads. He then realized that this was the traditional head motion that could mean anything.
Walter said in English, “Please help pushing the bus for a little distance.”
Eventually, the two men came to the vehicle, and then the three of them pushed the bus, which began to move. It actually moved better than expected because no barriers had shifted onto the road under the water. After about ten minutes of hard pushing, the bus stood back on a dry piece of road.
After thanking the toothless men for their helping hands with a “Namaste” and some rupees, Walter climbed back into the front passenger seat. Hilde tried the engine again, and it came alive after a few tries. Down the road, the water withdrew considerably. Walter looked for a good spot to stop and then performed an emergency oil change to make sure no water remained in the engine block.
The two companions and their little friend, Fritzi, entered the National Capital Territory of Delhi before noon on a hot, smoggy day, and Walter thought again that he was driving onto a biblical film set. What had previously occurred occasionally during the journey now became solid and constant: oxcarts and buffalo carts with wheels as large as the Volkswagen bus between smoking trucks, public buses, mopeds, meditating cows, and human beings in a jam-packed composite on the roads. It was never clear where the sidewalk started or even whether it existed. The drive through ancient times continued for hours until Hilde noticed a sign in English that indicated gas production in an industrial area.
While they had tried to boil water for the morning tea at the last rest stop, their propane gas bottle was emptied. They got a refill, and by lucky coincidence, a man working in the refill station office knew exactly how they could get to the location in New Delhi that had been recommended to them.
Within the hour, they entered New Delhi and navigated to the secret lodging place, about which information had been handed on from traveler to traveler. Leaving the wide avenue they had driven down, Walter navigated the bus through a hidden gate behind dense shrubs and slowly entered a large clearing. In amazement, Walter and Hilde encountered a genuinely perfect place of rest in this gigantic city. Many trees provided sufficient shade for mobile tourists, some of whom were already in the park. To their surprise, they discovered restrooms and showers in a redbrick building.
A well-deserved week of rest, shopping, and sightseeing began for all three. The smallest of the three needed additional tender loving care because during the travels he had become infected again with all kinds of bacteria and germs. His owners found a veterinarian and obtained medications for the young puppy. Walter and Hilde investigated the Connaught Circle area where shops carried anything a traveler might want or need. Walter got some loose, white cotton shirts, jackets, and trousers that he noticed other tourists occasionally wearing and that fit perfectly the climate and the touring job. Hilde stocked up on sari material and colorful bracelets.