Into the Mountains

I went camping into the Appalachians of Virginia last weekend. It was as impromptu trip as I have undertaken. Ashu calls me at 4.00 in the afternoon from the office and we are off at 6.00. We did get a taste of what a camping trip set up over less than two hours of planning takes. It can be real fun, if you can take it!

Some snapshots :

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Travel on the inter-state highways can be boring if you want to have a whiff of the life of the people in the US; the inter state highways are about destinations, not the journey itself. In anticipation of something different, we decided to take the country road instead of the inter state. For a change, it was not a mistake.

On our way, we passed small sleepy towns in Ohio, wasted and abandoned towns in WV and got a glimpse of the southern countryside in Virginia. Despite all the immigration that America has seen, these places looked overwhelmingly white.

It is common for the Americans visiting India to point out that they are constantly stared upon. Well, we got a taste of the same medicine this time. On our way, we stopped for dinner at a fast food restaurant somewhere near the Ohio/WV border. The scene inside was quite unlike what I had encountered so far. There were two middle aged men with pot bellies munching on the fries; there was a family with five kids having their dinner and there was a really old lady quietly finishing her dinner. As we went in, everyone seemed to have been surprised by seeing us. One of the middle aged men pointed towards us and the two started talking to each other in hushed tones. The couple in the family also looked curious and stole some, what I would call nervous, glances at us. The old lady gave us a longish stare, and the most uncomfortable one, but went back to her dinner permanently thereafter. The food went like fish fry, chicken fry, french fries; it seemed these people just take the shortcut of deep frying whatever comes their way! As we came out, my frined Ashu said he was glad to be out of there. We had felt kind of insecure because of those stares. I will be lying if I say I did not share his sentiments.

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The Inn that we took in Virginia was quite inexpensive. The manager, to my utter surprise, was a desi. What on earth is a desi person doing in the middle of a town of few thousands that is hundreds of miles away from civilization, I wondered? The stories of Gujjus owning the motels everywhere in the US are true after all, eh!


To be continued…hopefully!