Enclave

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"Well that was 'fun' wasn't it!" Our night in the big ass sleeper bus, in my eyes, was fun:

People walking up and down the outside whenever we stopped, banging on the windows trying to sell us everything from kitchen utensils to bottles of water and so much chai.
The speed bumps.
The heat from all the passengers.
The constant beeping of the buses horn and all the other vehicles.
The swerving of the bus to miss animal, mineral, vegetable, vehicle or the wild lesser spotted pothole slamming us from one side to another.
After a certain speed, the entire vehicle would try and vibrate itself to pieces.
Every indian on board was playing songs from bollywood movies on their phones.
The smell of feet, urine, shit, vomit, sweat, tobacco and animals mixed in with masala chai to make quite a strangely mild aroma.

and all of this while two of us were shut in a 6' x 3' x 2' box with sliding glass doors on both sides making it seem like a terrarium for some sort of large lizard. The only thing protecting our dignity were curtains on both sides and the glass was slightly tinted but the vibration of the bus tended to shake the windows open quite often. Below us in the bus were rows of seats which reclined slightly so that people could get a few Z's. I think my main concern was my reaction to being closed in but i just lay with the window open slightly so i could see outside which made it feel a lot less stuffy and a little cooler and fresher but most of all calmed my claustrophobia no end. Jill never had a very good time at the start but i think even she managed to get a few winks in our tank. Coming out of jaisalmer, our small town on wheels spent the first almost two hours driving through massive wind farms stretching as far as the eye could see. At once, very ugly structures individually but after seeing them in the distance for a few days and then driving through them on the way out they seem to have taken on a very tranquil aura almost a zen state of monotony and seeing whole fields of these effortlessly hypnotic structures was in the end a very beautiful and comforting sight. As long as the turbines were in view, they seemed to be bidding us farewell and thanking us for the business. While shut in our enclosure, thoughts flashed through my mind like the box which contained us falling onto the people in the seats below, the bus tipping over, india and pakistan falling out again, etc, etc but thankfully none of them came to pass(phew, especially the last one). By the time the dawn was threatening, we pulled into Ahmedabad and had a slight wait in the train station, maybe 4hrs for our train to Somnath at 8am so we found a little dhaba and had a dosa and drinks to kill the time. 8am came and we got on the sleeper train and headed out. It was around this time that Rebecca got ill with a stomach thing so for her, the journey was less than pleasant. a little while later and some discussion among the group and the guide books and we decided to disembark our chariot one stop early as it seemed like a good plan for bus connections onwards to Diu. Verawal, which was our next destination, produced a lot of mixed emotions. On the one hand it was noisy, dusty, grey, dirty and nothing what-so-ever really of interest... but... at the same time, it was one of the most welcoming places ive been in in india, bar the first rickshaw driver, no-one tried to rip us off and all the shops stuck to the MRP in this place, people tried to help us and didn't ask for money in return, the kids didn't beg or hassle us and things were pretty cheap. We stayed one night and got a taxi on to Diu itself which, i think was more than enough time for everyone in this fishy industrial port.

Now, here we are. Sitting on a beach(well internet cafe at the moment but hey) in the sun drinking beer and smoking cigarettes(*) while watching the sun set on the arabian sea... and its new years eve!! No wonder i never felt in the christmas spirit this year...

Boom Balenat!!!

Addendum:

After a lot of stress and strife, we finally managed to get through to Lufthansa and change our flight dates, we now come home on the 14th of January which is a little earlier than first planned but at that point, we'll have been here for 10weeks and 2 days which, right now i think, is long enough for my first time traveling. For the first time since i came here, i feel like i'm ready to go home.

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