You are crazy. It’s a good idea. Bus travel in India is horrifying. Bus travel is very direct. You’ll die. It’s the most direct and fastest way to get there. You’ll get fleas and bed bugs. You see the country. Buses are much cleaner than the trains. The movies are cool. Take earplugs and eyeshades. You should have your head examined.
For any important information in India, I learned long ago to ask several people the same question and take an average of all the answers. The same answer will never come up twice, even sometimes from the same person in the same conversation:
“I need a good barber. Where do you get your hair cut?”
“I used to get it cut from the man on Milk Union Rd. But no more.”
“Really? But where do you get your hair cut now?
“From that man.”
“The one on Milk Union Road?”
“Yes. I get my hair cut there only.”
“But I thought you said you don’t anymore”
“Oh no, he cuts my hair only.”
“I see….”
This cross-referencing strategy is essential to obtain any specific information, from finding a good barber to getting the correct time.
In railroad stations, you generally have to enquire at an office the track number for each train, as they are only listed on the announcement board after they have left the station. At 11:30 am, the announcement board will list track numbers for trains leaving at 7:30 am and 10:00 am, but not for trains leaving at 11:45 am.
Ask at the information desk the simple question “Secunderabad Express. What track?” and you will invariably receive different answers each time. So I take the most common answer, and then try to cross-reference it with other evidence (number of people waiting on platform, etc.)
In the States, we simply don’t have this problem. There is always the utmost clarity in replies to important questions asked of the locals. Ask an Amtrak employee what track the Acela Express leaves on and the answer will be quick and to the point:
“Huh?”
Ask any American for the time, directions to a good vegetarian restaurant or the nearest hospital’s emergency room. Again, the answer will be, invariably:
“Huh?”
India on many levels is much more advanced than the US. Interpersonal communication still exists here.
And so when we considered traveling around Southern India by bus, I asked lots of questions. If you’re slow on the uptake, the first paragraph in this blog is a compilation of the answers.
Traveling from Kodaikanal, it is easier to pick up a bus, as the nearest train station is a 2 hr. drive down the mountain. Though trains are cheaper than the bus, taxis are very expensive. For 550 rs. I can catch a direct bus to Bangalore. The train would cost 100 rs. or less. But it would cost 1800 rs. to get a taxi to the nearest train station to catch the train. You see the pecuniary pressures to take the bus.
Oh yes, there are public buses in India, which are extraordinarily cheap. We could take one to the train station (as a family of four) for less than 50 rs. But I don’t consider using them. The public buses are so filthy, old and packed with twice as many passengers as they were designed for, that were they to appear in a film, it would be judged an absurd comedy, so over the top as not to be believed. All the jokes about Indian buses and trains with people hanging from windows and stacked on the top are perfectly true. Add into the equation bald tires, poor maintenance and kamikaze drivers and, well, I tend not to use the public buses.
The buses I’m writing about are private buses. They are also poorly maintained and driven by kamikaze drivers, but you get a seat. They’re closer to American Greyhound buses, whereas Indian public buses are the equivalent of American school buses, though with steel seats.
The private buses with reclining seats are called “Semi-sleepers.” There’s even a variety with bunks called “Sleepers.” These seemed intriguing—you could stretch out flat as you traveled, in theory much more able to sleep than in the Coach-class airline style seats of the semi-sleepers.
Nearly everyone agreed, however, that road travel was more hazardous and less comfortable than the train. But the convenience of the direct bus, and lower overall cost was too much to resist. So we booked tickets from Kodai to Bangalore, then from Bangalore to Goa. Again, the advantage of the bus to Goa is that it could stop five minutes from the beach we were aiming for, while the train would drop us off 3 hrs. away, necessitating a very expensive taxi (or public bus).
Our bus to Bangalore was scheduled to depart at 6:30 pm, and arrive at 6:30 am in Bangalore. We would have a whole day to explore the city before catching a 5:30 pm bus to Goa, scheduled to reach Panaji at 9am. We should thus get to Canacona by 7am or so, and be on the beach before breakfast. It looked marvelously simple on paper. But several friends gave us pained looks when we told them our plans. Still, as many more didn’t blink.
Kodaikanal to Dindigul
We climbed onto our bus at 6:15 to find it looked not much different from any American bus, excepting the passengers of course. The seats reclined. There was an overhead luggage compartment. The windows opened. There were curtains. We settled in and waited to go.
Sitting behind us were about seven Nepalese teenagers listening to extremely loud rock and roll on their ipods. Though they were using earphones, and sitting several seats back, I could make out most of the lyrics.
Sitting in front of us was a group of Brahmin temple priests. They looked dressed up for a special occasion, though over their dhotis and sacred threads, they were wearing down parkas, had their knees wrapped in shawls and hands in woolen mittens. One was wearing a balaclava that exposed only his nose and eyes.
Now, it does get cold in Kodai in winter, compared to the plains. In early December, it was perhaps 60 degrees at sunset, and would go down to 50 at night. I was wearing a shirt, and not feeling a chill, especially as the bus seemed stuffy. But the priests were from Chennai and were most certainly not happy with the arctic cold of Kodai.
As we got talking, I learned the group had come to bless a new hotel in Kodaikanal. They seemed to be in high spirits, constantly cracking jokes and rolling in laughter. The bus attendant addressed the one in a balaclava as “Swami.” For all the world he looked like Ignatius Rielly from A Confederacy of Dunces. I withheld sharing this insight to avoid insult. On more mature consideration, I’m not sure any explanation of Ignatius would have caused offense, as he is untranslatable. I’m sure they were as puzzled by a Caucasian man married to an Asian woman with mixed race kids living in the middle of India. Sometimes I’m puzzled by this too.
The bus loudly lurched to life at 7:00pm and crawled out of the station. I think it had left its muffler somewhere down the mountain. But the sound and vibration diminished with higher revs, so there was hope that the whole trip wouldn’t be deafening.
Down the mountain we went in comfort. My daughter tends to get car sick, but on the bus she didn’t.
We pulled into Dindigul bus station at 10pm, and were told to get off and wait for the bus to Bangalore. We were expecting a direct bus, but then again, this is India. Somehow, the direct Bangalore bus had become a direct Chennai bus, perhaps to honor the Swamis, or perhaps for another reason. So we got out, waited and looked around at Dindigul.
In Connecticut, there’s a city called Waterbury. There’s really no reason to visit Waterbury, or even know about it, as it’s a dirty, ugly old industrial town without any redeeming features. It has well earned the nickname “The Armpit of Connecticut.” (The mayor, when not in jail over child molestation charges, has tried to improve things, but without much success). However, I bring up Waterbury as our visit to Dindigul reminded me of the place. Dindigul, sadly, is a serious armpit of a city, and on an Olympic scale. Waterbury can’t even begin to challenge Dindigul for overall shabbiness. And we were stuck in the Dindigul bus station for three hours, in the middle of the night.
To pass the time, we toured the environs. The bus station was poorly lit in grimy fluorescent, the gray crumbling buildings inhabited by a cast of lingering men of every possible description except happy. They milled about and stared at us. It was hard to tell if the road around the station was dirt or paved, since filth covered every inch and the edges of the potholes revealed nothing. The station was surrounded by more grimy, collapsing concrete buildings that seemed to stretch in every direction, and depressingly far into the distance.
First, we explored the edges of the station where the children had the opportunity to view an illustration of the term “gutter drunk.” Outside of a wine shop, there was a man staggeringly away. He fell as we approached, and into something liquid and odiferous. We could smell it at a stone’s throw. He had enormous trouble getting back up, finally throwing in the towel with a few curses, rolling over and falling asleep just as we passed. Luckily he was far enough to the edge of the road as to avoid most of the passing cars and trucks, but not pedestrians or bicycles, for which he turned into something of an obstacle.
From the wine shop, we explored several shut storefronts, so old and shabby the dirt had started to peel off in sheets. The garbage, rats, stray dogs, cows, all munching on the rotting garbage, and people along the edges of everything sitting in the garbage, lent a continuing interest to the landscape. No boring, blank scenes in Dindigul.
Eventually we retreated back to the private bus stand, no more than a 10 ft. by 10 ft. box in the side of a building. There were folding chairs to rest in, but most were missing backs. We tried to sit and talk, but the mosquitoes distracted. The kids could stretch out nowhere, so we held them. Luckily, several smiling geckos would play hide and seek behind the pictures on the wall, the only humorous relief in town. We sat and let the grim midnight mood of the Dindigul bus station penetrate our souls and defeat them utterly, even with the prospect of Bangalore in the morning.
I’ve never experienced three longer hours in my life, than those spent waiting in the Dindigul bus station. Just as I was becoming convinced that time had come to a complete halt and I had entered some hell imagined by Sartre, the Bangalore bus rolled in.
Dindigul to Bangalore
We nearly ran to climb on, settling into the reclining seats to make a stab at sleep. The bus lurched out of the station, onto the impossible road and headed towards Bangalore.
It was on this trip that the roads were much worse. The Ghat road from Kodai to Madurai is not bad. It’s the equivalent of a poorly maintained Connecticut country road: no real shoulders, about two cars wide (mostly), speckled with the occasional pothole. But the road from Dindigul was a real fright. The potholes were so deep that the bus would slow violently, come to a near stop, drop a wheel into a hole, the bus lurching, creaking and groaning with it, then downshift to get out of it, rising back up and out, the bus lurching back upright, bouncing us out of our seats. A heartbeat later, then the rear wheel would do the same, bouncing us again. I found my head would be thrown forward about a foot, then come slapping back about once every five minutes or so.
In addition to these potholes, the Indian authorities had set up speed bumps every kilometer or two. This is to keep speeding accidents down. However, going over them at 5kph has the effect of smashing teeth together, compressing vertebrae or dislodging the sinuses down into your throat and mouth.
Only when we got near Bangalore at about 5am did the roads get a little smoother. Amazingly, the kids slept through all of it, curled up on the seats, and woke without complaint.
Bangalore to Goa
The day in Bangalore was great fun, only partially marred by a strong desire for a nap in the afternoon. Still, we figured we had a 12 hr. ride on a bus which would give us more than ample opportunity to sleep, though doubts were beginning to set in.
The bus to Goa was inhabited by a very different sort of passenger: Most seemed to be businessmen. There was an Ethiopian couple on vacation, and a healthy young Goan girl taking some sick days from work to go home.
I was hoping to spy some of the famous Goa hippies, with dread locks and stupid grins heading off to paradise, but no such luck. As we pulled onto the road, the bus bounced considerably, though gently. It was immediately apparent that there were no shock absorbers (or at least functioning ones) on the rear axle. Each bump we hit would propel the rear of the bus into a series of gentle bounces, a foot or more up and down. Like some insane amusement park ride, we bounced on down the road. It promised to be a long ride.
One feature of private buses in India is the television screen at the front. These aren’t fancy on-board car or flat-screen airline televisions. They’re just large televisions built into a box to the left of the driver’s head (we drive on the left in India). Attached to them are dirty old DVD players, hotwired into the bus’s electrics. The driver generally stocks a collection of the worst Bollywood movies ever made. They are generally played at top volume to give the customer full value. Quiet movies, I think, are an indication of low quality, or arcane art film.
Our buses from Kodai to Bangalore had TVs, but played nothing. On the trip to Goa, however, the TV came on instantly after departure. What would the feature presentation be? Pirates of the Caribbean. Amusingly, the sound was so loud that even with ear plugs in, I could make out every last nuance of dialogue. It was a pleasant surprise. The kids were riveted.
After Pirates of the Caribbean, the second feature turned out to be none other than Rambo III, in which Rambo is lured from his peaceful life in a Buddhist temple to kick some Soviet butt in Afghanistan. With each awful scene, with each stupid line, with each stupid special effect, I realized more and more where Bollywood learned the fine art of filmmaking.
At least the movies took out attention away from the horrible ride. Now and again I’d be distracted from the film be seeing heads lurch up above their seats in front of me. I’d think “wow,” that was a bad bump, but not realize I had also flown up just as much.
After the films, I did sort of fall into a semi-sleep. The bus was a “semi-sleeper” after all. Only made sense that you could only fall partially-asleep, jounced up and down.
At 2am, I awoke to the sound of persistent hammering. The bus was leaning at a terrifying angle, stopped at the side of the road. The hammering came from underneath the bus: the sound of a steel hammer on very solid metal, resonating with each blow. Now and again, a truck would roar past, shaking the bus so that I swore we would tip over.
Happily, the kids were sound asleep. I got up and got out of the bus to see what was going on. The second driver (they always travel in pairs) was standing next to the rear wheels, a jumble of tools at his feet. Underneath, in pitch darkness came the grunts of the driver. He would start to hammer. Then stop. Then he’d demand another tool. The hammering would start again. This process continued for some time. I asked what the problem was and received a smile. But how could he see anything underneath? He did not have a flashlight.
In front and back of the bus stretched the road, sparsely populated with vehicles at 2am. On either side stretched empty fields and hills. Broken down in the middle of nowhere in India, I climbed back in the bus and tried to sleep in spite of the persistent hammering. Would we ever get to Goa?
After two hours, the driver and mate climbed in, started the bus and got back on the road. Joy leapt in my heart. After 20 minutes of driving, though, we pulled over again. All joy drained away. The driver got underneath and started hammering again. Of all the things to fix underneath a bus at 4 am, I could not come up with much that could be fixed by hammering. I worried that he was trying to fix one of the shock absorbers by hammering at it. Then I stopped worrying. It was pointless.
Only five minutes of hammering seemed to be sufficient, and we were off again. Then twenty minutes later we stopped again; more hammering for 5 minutes. This cycle continued for the rest of the trip.
We arrived in Canacona Station, our stop, around noon, about 6 hrs. late. I have rarely been so glad to get off a bus as I was then. The kids, astoundingly, were uncomplaining. We had made it to the beach and that was good enough for them. Within the hour, we were up to our noses in the warm Arabian sea, glad to have survived our first bus trip in India.
This is great info to know.
Posted by: Shantell | October 24, 2008 at 10:21 PM