Traveling with help of the guide book its easy enough (well sort of) to travel through India, although sometimes the most interesting part. On the ride down from dharamashala we left just as it started to rain, but being monsoon and the north when it rains it pours. Soaking wet within seconds of being out side (after arriving back in McLeod ganj from our 2 day trek and checking out) Tom and I rushed as fast as we could to the bus we had booked, however I had decided on flip flops as oppose to my walking boots, stepping in all sorts of watery muck as I rushed to catch the bus we were late for. We had paid for a sleeper bus (it has beds in case you were wondering) so soaking wet loaded are bags into the back and boarded. In the words of tom
“When making the beds they used the dimensions of an anorexic Pigmy to decide how
big to make the them”
Needless to say this was an uncomfortable ride, wet and with very little room we went from dharamashala down to Delhi, arrived there early in the morning where we began to bater for cab/tuk-tuk rides. We stored our bags as there were no trains leaving Delhi straight away, and hung out until the evening, again in james and tom style we left it till about 50 mins before to catch our night train to pushkar and had to barter for a tuk tuk to drive us the 45 min (roughly) across Delhi to the old station another night and we arrived in pushkar feeling somewhat weary. This is pretty much a typical journey for us, we stayed in puskar about 3 days doing camel trekking and chilling out around town. The local busses are interesting in pushkar- imagine a bus in its simplest form (not quite mad max style, but not far off), small and with a fair few indian locals, you can get a ride for about 5-10 pence for a short way- a bit better than 1.50 pounds back home!
Travelling from pushkar included going to ajmer to get a train to mumbai- however the “tourist quota” fills up so no more westerners can get on- it supposed to be for our benefit I’m told….any way….we wern’t about to catch a 3rd class train all the way to mumbai and this is a bit longer than an overnight slog….and they wernt accepting bribes or actually being help full in any way at all…also with shouting tuk tuks outrside who follow you, this was definatley a test of my patience…im polite with them to a point…I ran down to the nearest travel agency and booked up a sleeper bus to Ahemabad and told we could sort our selfs out a bus from there. So ran back to the station met tom and of we were on a rickshaw across town to catch the bus.
Busses seem less difficult to book than trains as the whole illogical and bureaucratic application process is omitted… also it seems easier to know which bus you are on instead of rushing to every different plat form at the station complete with heavy back pack and sweating profusely and asking a host of people who haven’t a clue which train it is.
Rubbing our eyes and yawning the next day in Ahemebad we continued to rush around like looneys, dense with sweat trying to work out which people were touts, which were miss-infomed about trains etc, which were correct and which were just out and out lying to us. A seven hour long ride in 3rd class packed with Indians with either armpit in your face or sitting down their groin in you shoulder etc…it did remind me a little or what rush hour on the tube back in London is like: rubbish (for those of you fortunate enough to have not experience it)…this was most definatley the most uncomfortable and hot ride yet, with vendors walking up and down shouting “CHAI, CHAI , CHAI, CHAI” or “BOLA BOLA BOLA”. People sitting around watch you with a similar fascination to that of a performer…they see enough westerners, yet still stare for minutes at a time. The final part of that jorney was on a much larger train with less people, which was much fun as you can hang out the doors and watch the sunset etc… This was about 27 hours or more of travel…exhausting, yet after arriving in Mumbai a couple of beers in the bar went down well.
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