The "Sleeper"

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I had a feeling that the "Sleeper" bus would be a bit of an adventure and I wasn't disappointed. When we arrived in Ahmedabad the agent told us that our bus was at 9pm so we should be back at his office for 8.30. That gave us a couple of hours to check emails and get some food.

We wandered down the street and after a while it became very apparent that very few people spoke english, 99% of the signs were in Hindi or some other non-Latin script. We later discovered that this was common across the whole of Gujarat. I'm not complaining that they didn't speak english, it was just a very strange experience going somewhere where you can't even recogise the letters used in the words let alone the words themselves. At least in Europe you can muddle through.

First we checked our mail and then went to get some food. We had problems here as it was quite difficult to work out which places were actually restaurants let alone what to order. All the menus were in "foreign" so we were stuck. Eventually we found somewhere advertising Thalis (a selection of small veg curry dishes and other sauces with poppadoms and rotis) in English. However when we got in there noone spoke english. We managed to order using sign language and were brought a selection of very nice dishes. Not really knowing what we were doing we started trying them and then swapping ones we didn't like with each other. We then felt a bit stupid as when we finished a dish they came and filled it up again. Anyway food was done with relative ease.

Then we walked back to the bus office with nearly an hour until our bus. But as we approached the agent ran out screaming at us to grab our bags and go to another agent round the corner. We walked round which turned out to be 5 mins rather than the 1 or 2 he said. When we got there they sent us to another place up the road. Starting to get worried. I did NOT want to be stuck in Ahmedabad for any longer than I had to. Got to the next place and they said no we had to go back to the first place. Just as I was about to lose it a bus pulled up outside which luckily appeared to be ours (well we couldn't be sure but it was going to Mumbai and they let us on so...)

Anyway we got on and discovered Si and I had to share a cosy double bunk for the whole 10 hours (turned out to be 12!). Also we didn't have a curtain so we were blinded by the street lights and oncoming traffic. In the rush I also managed to leave my silk liner in my rucsac so I had nothing to sleep under (or to protect me from the bunk).

As we started off the road was great and smooth and we thought that it might actually be ok and we'd be able to sleep, not so! About midnight just as we were getting ready to sleep we left the lovely smooth "motorway" and started driving over potholes pretty much all the way to Mumbai. Anyway it was funny looking back on in now and I don't feel too bad considering.

Anyway Si's getting mardy so I'd best be off. We're in Mumbai until tomorrow night and then we're getting the overnight train to Goa for a bit of relaxation???

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Comments

[Val]

Adventure
Thought you guy's were supposed to be having an adventure! When does it start? Maybe you should try driving, maybe then you would have more control over where you go when, but hang on you weren't too impressed with the driving skills were you so that might not be such a good plan - Just enjoy you will be able to write a book when you get back!