Sunset over Nakki Lake (Mount Abu) and view on the lake from my hotel room and some pilgrims meditating on the mountain at sunset...
But I wanted to talk about the bus trip! It was supposed to be an Express-bus, which usually stops only at very few and precise places as opposed to local buses basically stopping everywhere where people want to get on or off. You also have an assigned seat. However, this express-bus turned out to be a local bus, which meant that we stopped, during the 6 hours, I don't know exactly but at least a hundred times (I swear this is true!!) The advantage, if you want to call it like this, is that you meet lots of people in these buses. Actually, people communicate much more with each other in public transport than in Europa, where everybody just sits there, reads on stares around. Here, travelling is a social event and the bus is like a mini-society, with very poor but also more wealthy people, with very young (several newly born) and extremely old people (difficult to guess, 90 perhaps??), some behaving others not at all, some respecting other travellers and others imposing their will on others.. I can tell you, even if you do not speak Hindi, this is quite an adventure.. 
I put two pictures of the inside of the bus for you to get an impression.... ;-)
I just want to highlight two of the little stories I experiences. The first one is the my seat neighbour for most part of the trip, who was one of the few speaking English in the bus. His name was Narpat and he is a police man, a constable actually as he proudly told me. He was on his way from close to Jaisalmer to a place 100 km from Udaipur for a 9 months training course. He actually has a Master degree in Hindi literature and we chatted quite a bit during the long trip., not only how someone with a degree in Hindi literature ends up as a policeman (well, some of you might say "how does someone with a university degree in French literature end up as a Eurocrat?" and maybe you are right, the situations are perhaps not that different... ;-)
The second one is about a big paper box that somebody put in front of me (as I was sitting in the first row of the bus, this was the only space where people could put their luggage or whatever else they brought along..). It was a box which formerly contained packages of baby food and had a big smiling baby face on it.. As people continued to come in the bus, the mysterious box had to be moved several times and as it was not completely closed, people peaked in, but I could never see what was in it.. and some of you know how curious I can be... ;-) I suspected that there was some kind of animals in it, a chicken or soemthing.. but strangely enough I did not hear any noise.. I thought that I could smell aomething animal-like, but in India you never know where exactly a smell comes from.. it is always an enormous cocktail of (good and bad) smells.. At some point, on of the guys sitting next to the driver all in the front realised that his bag had gone wet by something and investigated where this came from.. it was not really clear... I took this as a confirmation for my hypothesis and immediately suspected that it it came from the animal in the box.. Once Narpat had peaked in the box and had talked to other people about it, I asked him what it was and he told me that it was a scientific model, which a group of four young students bring to a science competition taking place in Udaipur.. ;-) He opened the box a bot but I could not really figure out what it was.. after some time, we also knew where the liquid came from: it was actually one of the pots with food which had a leak and so some of the greasy sauce got out...
It is also remarkable how well bus drivers manage the very difficult traffic conditions here.. the road we took today was especially difficult as it went throught the Araveli-mountains, where they are building a four lane highway, which is a project of an enormous scope. All along the road there were works, trucks (oh no, I should say "lorries", trying to keep up with my British English..;-) ), people working on the road. Especially once it was dark this was a real challenge. There are actually many of these major road-construction projects ongoing as currently in Rajasthan, even between the very big cities, there are no good roads and that's why it takes so long getting from one place to another.. this will change soon, when these projects will be finished. This shows that India is preparing for increased traffic which will soon become a reality with the 2000 Euro car by the Indian car manufacturer Tata, called Tata Nao, which will be released in March. (see for more info on this: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article3164205.ece) Not to imagine how traffic in India will look like in 5 or 10 years...
Well, this was my story of the day.. I am now normally for three nights in a hotel with internet access (Wow !!!) and so I might even manage to upload - as promised a long time ago already - some pictures..
Now, I will have a nice lamb curry (some meat for a change after all this Veggy-food) on the hotel's roof terrace zith a nice view on Lake Pichota and the beautifully lit castle on an island in the lake, which was one of the places of the James Bond movie "Octopussy"... ;-)
The second one is about a big paper box that somebody put in front of me (as I was sitting in the first row of the bus, this was the only space where people could put their luggage or whatever else they brought along..). It was a box which formerly contained packages of baby food and had a big smiling baby face on it.. As people continued to come in the bus, the mysterious box had to be moved several times and as it was not completely closed, people peaked in, but I could never see what was in it.. and some of you know how curious I can be... ;-) I suspected that there was some kind of animals in it, a chicken or soemthing.. but strangely enough I did not hear any noise.. I thought that I could smell aomething animal-like, but in India you never know where exactly a smell comes from.. it is always an enormous cocktail of (good and bad) smells.. At some point, on of the guys sitting next to the driver all in the front realised that his bag had gone wet by something and investigated where this came from.. it was not really clear... I took this as a confirmation for my hypothesis and immediately suspected that it it came from the animal in the box.. Once Narpat had peaked in the box and had talked to other people about it, I asked him what it was and he told me that it was a scientific model, which a group of four young students bring to a science competition taking place in Udaipur.. ;-) He opened the box a bot but I could not really figure out what it was.. after some time, we also knew where the liquid came from: it was actually one of the pots with food which had a leak and so some of the greasy sauce got out...
It is also remarkable how well bus drivers manage the very difficult traffic conditions here.. the road we took today was especially difficult as it went throught the Araveli-mountains, where they are building a four lane highway, which is a project of an enormous scope. All along the road there were works, trucks (oh no, I should say "lorries", trying to keep up with my British English..;-) ), people working on the road. Especially once it was dark this was a real challenge. There are actually many of these major road-construction projects ongoing as currently in Rajasthan, even between the very big cities, there are no good roads and that's why it takes so long getting from one place to another.. this will change soon, when these projects will be finished. This shows that India is preparing for increased traffic which will soon become a reality with the 2000 Euro car by the Indian car manufacturer Tata, called Tata Nao, which will be released in March. (see for more info on this: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article3164205.ece) Not to imagine how traffic in India will look like in 5 or 10 years...
Well, this was my story of the day.. I am now normally for three nights in a hotel with internet access (Wow !!!) and so I might even manage to upload - as promised a long time ago already - some pictures..
Now, I will have a nice lamb curry (some meat for a change after all this Veggy-food) on the hotel's roof terrace zith a nice view on Lake Pichota and the beautifully lit castle on an island in the lake, which was one of the places of the James Bond movie "Octopussy"... ;-)
1 comment:
hey there, travel really is an adventure. glad that you are having fun. Say hi to James Bond for me ;-)
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