Journey Home

I left the mountains early this morning. I took a taxi from my friends' house to the bus station which cost me about $3. When I arrived at the bus station I asked where the "Deluxe" buses were in Hindi, and the guy looked at me plainly and then just kind of shrugged his shoulders. The deluxe bus is only about $1 more expensive than the regular bus and is considered safer and more comfortable, however, after asking a couple more times, I think I understood that there weren't any deluxe buses there at that time. Seeing as my language still isn't very good though, he could have said a number of things, and I wouldn't have understood him...seeing as there appeared to be no other option I jumped on the regular bus, which was only going to cost me $1.50 for a 4 hour journey. I have been told that the regular bus was pretty safe in this area, so I figured I would give it a shot. The bus started off about half full, but as we started pulling out of bus station, more and more people jumped on, and filled up all the seats. The bus by this point was FULL, but that didn't stop more and more people climbing in for the four hour trip down the mountain.

Sometimes i think bus drivers think driving down the side of the mountain is a game of chicken. "Let's see who will move out of the way first" and I questioned the quality of the brakes, because everytime the driver tried to stop there was a loud screeching noise that came from the wheels. I had visions of the brakes failing and the bus tumbling down the side of the mountain. Luckily the brakes did just fine and we continued weaving down the mountain when it started.....one by one the windows were opened and Indian heads were stuck out the side of the bus basically puking their guts out. I was under the impression that nationals were immune to car sickness, but I guess that is not the case. More and more people crammed on the bus, and more and more people threw up out the window- I have to admit that at this point I was very proud of myself for not getting sick. I safely made it back to the city beautiful puke free and still alive- it was quite an accomplishment, and I have to admit it was kind of fun to ride crammed in a bus with a lot of nationals, despite the strange looks I received.