Monday 23. February

The bus from Sri Krishna Travels My stomach didn't handle those chicken rolls I had last night very well, so I had to start the day at the WC. But then it was OK. We had some breakfast, and the bus arrived at 10. It was a rather fancy bus from Sri Krishna Travels, a red one with flowers in the front, light equipped Hindu temple in the front window and air condition. So we didn't have to suffer, except for the neck supporters. They were made for shortgrown Indians. The English team from Manchester, a Swedish American and three guys from Holland is going with us also.

We had our first "bush time" after a few hours, so we found out how hot it really is outside. Benjamin bought ice cold Coke for the whole bunch, and Tone had a round asking everyone how they were getting along.

Now we're driving through a flat landscape with some palms and some very green fields in between. The small villages are densely built with small, low houses. The roofs are covered with tiles, corrugated iron or palm leaves, and many of the houses are partly fallen apart. It's not always easy to see whether a house is under construction or destruction. And of course, time isn't going, it's coming.

India is a very green country, at least this part of it, and in this season, even though the ground looks very dry. Now and then we can see small mountains and hills, breaking the flat landscapes.

In the palm trees there are some large fruits that could have been coconuts, but they aren't, according to our local experts. When the coconut is young, by the way, its juice isn't so sweet, and it is very clean, a refreshing and healthy drink. As a matter of fact, it's so clean it can be used as blood serum if needed.

Along the road in the villages there are lots of small shops where they sell everything from bicycles to TV-sets to food and drink. And we just passed a barber in a small wooden shed. I wouldn't shave there!

We had another stop after another while to cool the engine and relax for a few minutes. I guess the driver needed a rest also. There was some kind of toilet there, a masoned little room about 1,2m high, with no roof. There was a barrel of water there, and a small hole in the wall by the floor for the bowels to flood through. I was glad I only had "bimmelim" to do, and not "bommelom". There were also some small swine, cows and birds here, and we could by Coke or 7 Up for 10 Rupees a bottle, that's about $3/4.

Now we're on the road again, and we wonder if we should practice some Indian songs in the Telugu language, which is spoken in this area of India. We got the lyrics from Birgitta and Svante, a couple of Swedish singers that we met at the hotel in Hyderabad:
Hallelujah stotti ma hi ma, ja la
po do de voni kitche da mo

Our route. We stopped along the road, a few kilometres from Vijayawada to dedicate a field where they're going to build a new church building and orphanage. So we made the first spits with the spade. It's about 17:30 now, and the sun is about to set.

We had dinner at a hotel in Vijayawada. We started with corn soup, then we had rice with sweet&sour and fried chicken. We had Limca to drink, some kind of bitter lemon. It was tasty and refreshing.

They moved all our luggage to a pair of vans from Sri Sai Car Travels while we were eating. No more air condition and comfortable seats. But who cares, there's only 4-5 hours left to drive. I really begin to enjoy this, a real missionary journey. They have red, yellow and green lights inside the van, and they're clearly proud of it. And the traffic outside is the usual Indian style, honking, plinging and disorder. May the Lord give us grace!

After driving in the Indian rural districts for a while, amusement parks loose some of their magic. Now the radiator is overheated, so there'll be a short stop for cooling it down before we bump along the road, which is not really so bad, but really bad now and then. After a new, short break to wait for the other van, we're on the road again. They sold Pepsi where we stopped, of course. In this van, by the way, we're Jaap, Cornelius, Christopher, Neal, Henk and I.

There were three railroad crossings along the road also, were we had to wait a few minutes at each. We're obviously in an area of much training. I filmed one of them, I wonder if I got it on tape. It was rather dark.

We arrived at Narsapur around 1 am, quite stiff after the long journey. The beds are quite simple, but fair enough. Pretty short also. But we're very tired, so we'll go to sleep.