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Morning. 5:00. Winter. Air temperature 0 degrees Celsius. I pack my backpack and leave the hostel. And now we are 6 people from the department of "digital archeology and history" standing in the square in front of the administrative building.
Three riders arrived. They looked like our 21 Volga, well, a little squat and wider. We were surprised at the choice of this type of machine. After all, they had to move over rough terrain in a national park.
But our supervisor did not answer us. On the way to the national park, we stopped by our second curator, professor of the department. He lived near a railway crossing. In a two-story concrete house. His own. He bought it for $ 250,000. There were three cars at home. One jeep Tata, one minibus and a small car. The professor's salary was $ 1,000. But before that, he worked for about 8 years at a research inst.i.tute in the states, so for 10 years he managed to save up for such a cute house with a red tiled roof at the edge of a rainforest.
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The professor gathered for about half an hour, and then we headed along the road to the national park. I had to drive for about 15 hours. Since we were on a religious holiday of some kind. And the area where there was a shorter road was cordoned off by police, armored cars and a checkpoint with machine guns and barbed wire. That year was a hectic one.
About thirty bridges crossed the road, on one of which the car in front of us fell through the front wheels, breaking through a dilapidated wooden floor. The bridge was built in 1898 by the British.
There we ran into our "senior" Indian students, they were just returning from a field expedition from the Northeast Himalayas. They treated us to bananas and chapatis.
We arrived in Ramnagar in the evening. This is such a small town where truckers stop and the office of the national park is located there.
We decided to stay in the guest house. The price per day was 10 dollars from the nose. There were no windows in the house, only a grid, though with large cells of 5 centimeters.
Three-story brick house. With a black coating on the bricks. Narrow house. The width is about 7 meters. On the ground floor there was a single room. These were three rooms. One 6 meters wide and 5 meters long there were six tables and 12 seeds in it. In the right corner of the first room near the end there was a small desk with a cash register and a showcase. The owner of the establishment, Mr. Sharma, sat there.
The waiters were six strong men, with stern faces. They carried simple food. Boiled rice, eggs, curry stewed chicken, fried wheat and soybean seedlings. And also placed on the tables jugs of water and plates with high pyramids of "chapati" or "rotti" such local bread such as small cakes.
The room itself was lit by a dim light.
In the second room was the kitchen. It consisted of two gas stoves, on which frying pans stood and on the other a 20 liter pan, where rice was boiled.
In the third room there was a warehouse with bags of rice, a refrigerator and a pa.s.sage room into the courtyard of the building.
The hotel was located on the second and third floor. It consisted of one couch, instead of mattresses there were thin poles of lianas, one chair, a basin and a jug for was.h.i.+ng. The rooms themselves were only three to four square meters. One night was worth $ 2. Surprisingly, tourists from Denmark, Germany and Sweden agreed to live in such Spartan conditions.
Ramnagar, the city of truckers, their base before the trip from Uttar Pradesh to Himalayan Pradesh.
And so we ordered simple food and also asked them to boil us the same famous pasta "until the minute it is al." - two minutes and you're done! Maggie!
We went to the city shop for peasants in Ramnagar. There was almost nothing on the shelves except kerosene, dumplings of 6.5 rupees per 1 kg, rice with stones for weight, some dried roots. And that's all ...
Moreover, in India, the best rice is considered "Dunsky" they used to give bribes to both local officials and the British in the colonial era. 10 kg bags. They are still considered a good gift. If ordinary rice for 1 kg cost about 5 rupees, then this 400 rupees, that is, about 10 dollars. Moreover, in cheap rice, stones, bolts, some sand often came across, and by weight somewhere it reached 100-140 grams. That in expensive rice, it was clean, already selected, selected.
Along the way, they saw a man in the market who was selling cuc.u.mbers on a wheelbarrow. Each cost 10 rupees (the rate was then about 40 rupees per 1 dollar, while now it is already 70 rupees per dollar). And they were yellow. We would consider them - seed and not suitable for food. But in India, it was completely different. Green cuc.u.mbers were considered immature and yellow, sweet and tasty.
Upon arrival at the guest house, we had dinner with Maggi pasta, drank sweet tea and had a bite of cookies, leaving a packet on the table.
There was smoke in the room from mosquito repellent. Somehow managed to fall asleep. Towards three in the morning, a shot rang out from which we woke up. It was a showdown with truckers. Their parking was just opposite our window.
Closer to 5 in the morning we woke up. They went to brush their teeth and were amazed that only some trash remained from the soap. And someone was gnawing toothpaste.
They came to the table and there were no cookies left, only again the same rubbish. And after we saw large and thick white ants. These were termites. They existed peacefully with guests, though periodically raiding their soap and products.