To Mumbai via Ahmedabad

Well, that ride blew. There were no seats available on the train from Amjer, near Pushkar, to Mumbai. So I took the night sleeper bus to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and this morning booked a sleeper to Mumbai for tonight. I took a sleeper bus from Udaipur to Ajmer, and it was nice, thugh the road was a little rough. It was a fine bus, modern, comfortable with sheets and a pillow, a metal door for privacy, air conditioned (quiet inside), room to store my pack and a rack in my berth for my shoes. Last night’s bus and ride were the opposite.

For one, they had so much commercial cargo that the baggage holds and the roof were full. I had to sleep in this narrow, short bunk with my pack. They oversold the tickets, so a few people slept on the floor. One floor guy wanted my bunk and three of us had to drag him out of there. Indians are very verbal but they fight like girls. Anyway, the bus got there late, and took a while to load and finalize where people were going to sit/lie. It was hot and my window didn’t work and there was no air conditioning. No sheet. Just a ripe blanket. What little headroom I had was partially taken up by a broken fan which would have been more in the way anyway. It was billed as an express, but we stopped a bunch of times. Each time, there was more commotion. At least there were no live animals on board. The driver was crazy, and the road rough. The thing rattled. And last but not least, during the night one passenger played his religious music. None of the passengers said anything, so I didn’t. Indians are used to noise and crowding. Then in the morning, the bus speaker played popular music for our entertainment. Hindi-pop can be tormenting. I think it was a single cassette tape, but it had different styles, all of it warbly from the old tape and from the warbly singing style. It’s hard to tell which was intentional and which was an old tape on it’s last legs. One was Hendrix-like on slack guitar/Don Ho vocal. Another was Freddy Mercury with Barney’s voice. Another was a Ventures rip-off (Don’t forget the warbling). And several were accoustic orchestra with juvenile electric guitar and a female vocalist. Omygod, it was worse than usual, and that’s bad.

Anyway, I’m here in Ahmedabad, killing time till my train leaves at 10 tonight. I walked around downtown a little. It’s friendlier than the touristy places. I think one block from the train staion, they haven’t seen much of foreigners. I don’t have an inclination to explore today. I’m going to try not to sleep through my train departure.

The police recovered my wallet and credit cards. For some reason, the thief kept my driver’s license and, of course, the $50. I wonder if the bank will let me use my ATM card, even though I reported it stolen? I’ll call them tonight, when it’s business hours in the US. That’s about it for today. I’ll write from Mumbai.

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