Samosas are so yummy. This guy was making a deepfried pepper snack. He allowed me to take his picture provided I tasted a chili. Street food can be tasty if you pick the right stand. I admit I haven’t tasted much other than samosas.
That brings me to today. I took the 730 bus to Jodphur. It was supposed to take five hours or less. I arrived after six and a half hours.
We moved from mountains and hills to complete barren desert. With every mile we crossed, the hotter and dustier it got. We had a few scares on the one lane roads but luckily our driver was adept at keeping the bus upright. It was difficult to take pictures so I didn’t try. I just sat back and gazed out the window at God’s work.
I admit whenever I thought of India in the past my thoughts were of curry, samosas and the Taj Mahal and nothing more. What wonderful landscape India has to offer to its visitors. Despite the duration and uncomfortable nature of the ride, I am happy I took the bus.
Now let me describe the bus itself for you. It was an old white bus that probably fits about twenty people comfortably. I don’t know the make or model of it but it reminds me off a bus from the sixties or seventies if not before.
Inside the bus, the compartment is divided equally into seats and sleepers. The windows were wide enough to jump out and the seats were recliners so you could adjust them, if they worked (they didn’t). Actually it looked more like a train compartment than the interior of a bus. Picture filthy seat covers in a dirty interior. Being in Asia for so long, none of this surprised me or bothered me. Just another day traveling on the cheap.
I took my seat and prepared for the journey. Starting out the bus was nearly empty. Beside me for the first hour was an older Indian man who didn’t say boo to me. He softened up when I offered him a book to read. I read for a good part of the journey until the bus started to fill up.
We stopped nearly every fifteen minutes and more and more people hopped a board. I kept thinking, where are these people going to sit?
Well remember the sleepers? Well they could easily fit two families of four comfortably as I soon found out. It was a strange feeling to have a whole seat to myself while ten people were squeezed together on a small bed. Those who didn’t have seats sat on the floor. The ticket guy just kept walking up and down the aisle collecting money.
By now my seatmate had changed. Beside me was a lovely 85 year old Indian woman dressed in a tattered old sari. With her was an old rice sac filled with her personal effects. She was cute. She offered me really strange looking snacks. I declined most offerings but accepted a cucumber that she bought at the rest stop.
Even though she and I didn’t speak the same language, she asked me what time it was several times and asked me to change seats with her so she could spit out the window. Oh and she told me to stop reading because it was damaging to my eyes. When she got off at her destination she gave me the most precious handshake and smile. It was enough to make me cry if my eyes weren’t so dry from the dust.
The ride itself wasn’t so bad. I ignored all the nasty (like passengers spitting out the window, a child puking all over himself and the man seated behind him, the smell and the insects crawling on my left leg) and kept my eyes focused on the great outdoors.
The ride itself wasn’t so bad. I ignored all the nasty (like passengers spitting out the window, a child puking all over himself and the man seated behind him,