Journal 12

Dear Journal,

Today must have been the longest day of my life. We got up at 5:30 a.m., after only 3 hours of sleep, to leave for Nagarjuna konda.

Nagarajuna konda is an island, which emerges out of the artificial lake of the Nagarjuna Sagar dam. There is a Buddhist museum situated at Nagarjunakonda, which has a collection of Buddhist ruins and structures discovered in excavations, when the dam was being constructed in 1926. It’s history dates back to the 2nd century B.C. to 3rd century A.D. It was one of the important Buddhist centers of South India but today only the ruins of the lost city lie in the shadow of the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam.

One thing that made this trip so exhausting was the fact that it wasn’t anything like what we expected. We were told that the trip there would only be a 2-hour drive on an air-conditioned bus. We quickly found out that the bus was not air-conditioned and instead of 2-hours, the drive took about five. I really don’t mind giving up some of the luxuries I am used to, but I don’t like it when I am told one thing and find that none of it was true. I realize that usually things don’t turn out to be what you had expected and that things don’t always go as planned, but this was NOTHING like planned.

Anyway, after the long drive we arrived at a little hotel near the site and had lunch, which was prepared for our travel group. We then drove to the place where the boat would take us to the island. For me, waiting for the boat on the little dock was a very strange experience. Like usually there were people staring at us and taking pictures. The strangest thing to me however, was that there was this guy in normal street clothes, carrying a machine gun. I couldn’t believe that he would be allowed to just walk around with a machine gun strapped over his shoulder. It was not like he was trying to hide it either. He was not a security guard or a cop, simply a man, walking around with a machine gun. I got even more uncomfortable when I realized that he was getting on the boat also. The boat itself was very suspicious looking and when they started pilling twice as many people as there was room for (like they do with any other mode of transportation here) I felt very uncomfortable. The boat ride took about 30 minutes and I felt much better being back on the ground and further away from the man with the gun. First we went into the museum to see some of the actual objects that were found. The museum was hot because there was no electricity (no electricity = no fans) and again, people were staring at us, taking pictures of us and asking us where we were from. I have discovered that saying you are from Europe (which is actually true for me J) or Australia helps to get rid of them faster than if you said you were from the United States. After we saw everything in the museum we continued up to the actual site, which I have to say, I was kind of disappointed by. There were some ruins and a couple statues, but nothing big.

After some walking around, sightseeing and another scary boat ride (with the “gunman” sitting just a few seats away from me…) we arrived back at shore, where we continued on to the Nagarjuna Sagar waterfalls, which was beautiful. After a long and very exhausting day we finally got back on the bus to start our 5-hour long drive back.

I am amazed that we did not get into an accident. We were basically “flying” down the road, in the pouring rain, with no street lights, while trying to avoid cows, dogs, rickshaws and people walking on the road. After an 18-hour long trip (all for only 2 or 3 hours of sightseeing) we finally arrived safely at the guesthouse. After we all had some well-deserved Domino’s Pizza we found out that the “gunman” was a bodyguard for someone. This made me feel a little better, but still didn’t make sense, since he was mainly walking around by himself, not looking to concerned with “guarding” anybody. Either way, nobody should be allowed to carry around a gun like the one he was carrying.