Bus and train travel in India: With the equivalent of several days under my
belt, I’m a bit more aware of how things work in this area. In the chaos and
disorder of a typical train and bus station, transportation arrives and
departs largely on time – if only you could find the desired transportation
vehicle without the benefit of signs in English and other passengers giving
conflicting information or wildly signaling to an unknown area. I’ve
learned to cheat by smiling helplessly at a station worker, tell him where
I’m going, then sit back in a very obvious area and wait for him to signal me
when and where I should go. MUCH easier and less stressful, believe me.
They usually escort me directly to the bus too.
I’ve taken my first overnight train (on the way to Dharamsala) and I must say it didn’t compare favorably to China’s trains. The second class set up is
that you have three bunk beds parallel to another three and then two beds at the end – similar to China except for the latter two beds. You share four
ceiling fans and an overhead light. Unlike China, you don’t get a pillow,
sheet, and a blanket AND there are steel links below the bottom bed so you
can chain your bags to them. I never worried about theft on China’s trains.
Like traveling in China, you end up in lots of miscellaneous conversations
because you are a novelty item to relieve the boredom but I never was asked
to engage in conversations at 3 am on a Chinese train. Anyway, enough of comparisons, the train was pretty clean, the staff non existent, and it only
arrived an hour late.
Local long distance buses are a banquet for the eye, particularly if I can
secure my coveted seat next to the driver on the longer hauls. I’ve seen
more stunning scenery such as what I described on the Gangotri trip (sans
icebergs of course), soaked up rural life like watching a never ending movie,
and passed through countless small towns which end up looking a lot alike.
The majority of the people get on the bus by just flagging the bus down as it comes barreling by and it has been quite amusing trying to figure out why the driver doesn’t choose to pick up somebody or another. There’s always at
least one other worker on the bus who takes the bus fares and uses his
whistle to signal when to start or stop. I’ve found the drivers to be
excellent ones as well as generally friendly people, one driver even treated
me to a chai (the India tea which has herbs and milk added)which resulted in us offering cigarettes to each other for the remainder of the 7 hour trip.
