Night Bus

While in Pune I booked an overnight bus to Goa. While booking the guy failed to tell me it was a bus with only bunks. Didn't find that out until this guy that Suprito was talking to told him while we were waiting for it to arrive. He offered to cancel this bus and get another for me that left the next day but I was already packed to go and waiting for it. So I decided to just go with it and maybe I'd have a story to tell. I was right. You should have seen these bunks. Mine was a single and it was about 2 1/2ft wide. I had to pull out my bag of yoga tricks just to get inside the damn thing. When I layed down flat, well I couldn't lay down flat without bending my knees because it was so short, my head and feet both jammed up against the metal bunk walls. It was a top bunk so that was a good thing and fortunately I had a sliding glass window right beside my head, it turned out to be a lifesaver. I actually had a cool view from the window, when you cocked your head just the right way. Sort of a bird's eye view from about 12ft above the street. Watched from the window as we left the city and drove into the countryside. At around 11:00pm or so we pulled into this restaurant that was all lit up in the middle of nowhere. It was open air and they had Indian trance music blaring. I asked the waiter for a few things which he told me would take too long because the bus wouldn't be stopped long. He then began to recommend a few things that would be made quickly. One of them was a cheese sandwich. For some reason I assumed it would be grilled or fried, heated in some way. It came out to be three layers of white bread with the crust cut off with grated, unmelted cheese in between the bread slices, cut into triangles like a club. With a side of ketchup. When he brought it out I couldn't help but laugh hysterically. But I ate it, along with some other snacks that I brought. The bus stopped a few other times throughout the night. basically just on the side of the road. I spent most of the time staring out the open window into the darkness or reading with the wind on my face. Because I could only see out the side and not in front, it was kind of erie travelling through the country side at night. Sometimes we would stop and you could here voices outside the bus. I was sure they were bandits asking if there were any goras(white people) on the bus that they could rob. The smells that came through the window while driving through certain areas were indescribable. On that ride I really got a smell for the feel of India, or was it a feel for the smell of India. maybe a little of both. Only slept about two hrs that night. The sun started to rise when we came into northern Goa. We came to a final stop when everyone got off the bus except me. When the driver came back on and told me I needed to get off I showed him my ticket and I knew this wasn't as far as I was supposed to go. So he put on another bus that finally made it to Madgoan(or Margoa). Many cities in India have two names because they were renamed after gaining independence from the British. When I got off the bus I guy on a motorcycle taxi offered me a ride. I didn't think we could do it with my huge bag but he assured me we could. We shoved my bag in between us and took off with my ass almost hanging off the back(no helmets). Most parts of Goa are very beautiful. We passed palm trees and rice paddies with buffalo roaming on the way to the beach. He dropped me off and left me to lug my stuff through the dunes until finally making it to the little group of beach huts called The Blue Corner where I had a reservation. Immediately passed out while listening to the lapping sea. Before posting this I couldn't find the photo cd that i had my first set of pictures saved on; all the pics from Bombay, Alibag, Pune, the night bus, and half of Goa. Very disappointing, had some good ones of the bunks and the sunrise out the window as well as the huts and Benaulim beach. If I find it I'll post them. If not, still have them in my head.