By Ryan Larsen

When I first landed in India, I thought it would all be a chaotic yet organized scorching megacity like Delhi. A lot of people thought New Delhi was terrible and too hot and just overall bad, but I couldn’t disagree more. Even after being there for the hottest day in the city in history (122 degrees!), I still think it was the most amazing experience of my life. Traffic and daily life in New Delhi look chaotic, unorganized, and disrespectful. This couldn’t be further from the truth. After a day or two in India’s capital, I realized I hadn’t seen any evidence of car crashes or anything of the sort. Daily life in New Delhi is simply different from American life and I accepted that. The way Indian drivers turn a two-lane road into a four-lane road just by weaving around each other while honking and taking turns is unlike anything I’ve seen. The skill it takes to drive in New Delhi is a skill like no other. 

Fast forward to the road to Agora, where Mau was praying and screaming because one wheel of our bus grazed the edge of the cliff. I looked at our driver’s face and saw that he was just messing with us. This guy has the skill, earned over more than 20 years of driving these roads to flick around turns thousands of feet up, inches away from death, just to mess with us. I think that just shows how much skill these people have, and I learned to trust the driver’s skills. 

I was a leader of the day when we took a series of hikes to go fishing in a river around a bend and up a narrow valley from Agora. The question Chase and I made up at the beginning of the day was to notice something we’ve never noticed before, whether it be in India or any other part of the world. Here’s my answer to that question: I noticed people in our group really living in the moment. There were so many people going out to swim in the freezing river and hike or fish, and after that there was a game of spoons that had us laughing and talking trash. I saw almost no one distracted in the vortex of their phones and everyone was just living in the moment. 

It was an oddly beautiful thing to witness and I couldn’t be more proud of our group. Alright everyone, namaste!