Long road to Bombay

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVIN AND BEN!!!

We woke up to a nice cool morning in Udaipur and had some breakfast before heading to the train station to figure out what we're doing after Udaipur. All of the trains to Mumbai are booked out for the next few days, so we decided to take a bus from here south to Ahmedabad and will deal with the trip to Mumbai once we get there.

Our chores done, we spent most of the morning on the computer. We headed to the bus stop in the pouring rain, arriving drenched and just as the clouds passed over and the rain stopped. We got on the bus (non air-con of course) and waited about 20 minutes for it to leave. As we waited, a young boy of about 10 years old was walking underneath the bus windows, trying to sell cold drinks and snacks. He and a friend boarded the bus and quitely walked down the aisle to make a sale. A few minutes later, a man (with horribly dyed orange hair-what's up with that in India anyway?) got on the bus, yelled at the two boys, and smacked them both upside the head a few times. And hard. Nige instinctively yelled at the guy, but he didn't listen at all. He was only interested in smacking the boys until they got off the bus. Feeling bad, Nige stuck his head out of the window and beckoned one of the boys over. He wanted to buy a soda, and the boy quickly went to fetch them. As Nige was handing the money down to him, the same bad man came over, yelled at the boy and started whacking him with a broom made of sticks, and hitting him on the head again. Nige yelled at him,'Hey fuckhead, don't hit him! I'm buying something from him!' and yelled a few more times as the man continued to abuse the boy. The boy didn't seem bothered, he just wanted to make a sale. It was very frustrating for us, as the boys were not doing any harm or causing any problems. The guy probably just wanted passengers to have to get off of the bus and go to HIS shop right in front of the bus, rather than buy from the boys. We caused a bit of a scene, with all of the other passengers coming over to look at us and look out to see why Nigel was yelling, but just because something is accepted as part of a different culture doesn't make it right.

We had about 8 hours on the bus south to Ahmedabad, and it was uneventful. Our lovely diet during this whole time included Lay's Potato Chips, Cadbury chocolate bars, and some Mung Dhal (a packaged snack of crunchy, pan-fried lentils that kind of taste like a mix between a nut and potato chips). We were not even going to attempt the food being served at the dodgy truck stops.

Arriving at night in Ahmedabad, we decided we didn't want to hang around at all, and figured we'd just catch the next bus to Mumbai, even though we don't particularly like overnight buses. We were dropped off in some obscure place in town, and as we tried to figure out where we were and where we needed to go, we were surrounded and hassled by a crowd of rickshaw drivers, children wanting to catch the action, and anyone else who just happened to be walking by. All of the drivers wanted to charge us about triple the real price to take us to the bus station (God forbid the buses actually drop us off there!), and they even lied about how far it is. Some said 8 kms, some said 10, and one guy said it was 20 kms! We knew where it was, about 7 kms from where we were standing, and that we shouldn't pay more than 30 rupees to get there. After fending off those trying to charge us from 70-130 rupees, we walked up and down the street trying to flag down other rickshaws. As we moved, the whole crowd around us followed, creating a nice little cocoon of crooks around us, kind of like the dirt that follows Pig Pen around in the Peanuts comics. It was extremely frustrating, and I felt particularly uncomfortable having all of these men right in my face, touching me and trying to get a grope or two.

Finally a driver said he'd take us for 40 rupees, and we were happy to leave the mob behind. We went to a travel agent just near the bus station, but they were rude and couldn't/wouldn't help us. We rang a number in the Lonely Planet book, and found out that there was a bus leaving for Mumbai at 9:00 p.m. But the guy hung up on Nigel before we could find out where it left from. So, we finally got through again, and the nice man at the phone place helped us figure out where we needed to go to catch this bus, and how much it should cost in a rickshaw. He even came out of the shop to speak to the rickshaw driver in Hindi. We arrived at the private bus company, purchased the last 2 seats to Mumbai, and got on the 9:00 p.m. bus with about 2 minutes to spare. So after all of the hassles, it really did work out in the end.

The bus did depart at 9:00 a.m., but we then spent the next 2 hours stopping at various locations around town to pick up cargo, some of which we think was some sort of bootleg magazines. Starving for something to eat by this point, we asked the driver how long we would be as we had just passed a McDonald's down the road and we wanted to make a quick trip there. He assured us it would be only 10 minutes, not enough time. So 10 minutes passed, and I asked again how long we'd be. 'Only 10 minutes.' In the end, we were there for nealy 45 minutes, enough time for us to have been down to McDonald's and back about 5 times. It was so frustrating! And then to pour salt into the wound, we passed another McDonald's as we finally headed out of town. It was a long, boring trip to Mumbai, and the 13 hour trip ended up taking about 16.