Buses and Throw-up

This was before I died.  The guy on the left
is one of the Indian buddies we made
on our trip.

Out of the 5 members of our original group, the other boy became homesick and flew back to America.  It is now Lindsay, Shelby, Ashley, and me.  The group had planned to take an overnight bus to Goa this weekend, but two of the girls bailed and bought plane tickets instead.  Ashley and I were the only two who rode the bus, which turned out to be pretty agonizing.  The bus was scheduled to depart from downtown Mumbai at 9pm so we caught a rickshaw at 7 and waited in a diner for 45 minutes after check-in.  The bus had bunk beds lining the walls with about a 2-foot wide walkway.  We met three Indian guys who had just graduated college and talked with them for a few hours.  They seemed like any other 20 year old guys.  Because I was starting to get carsick I retired to my bed and tried to fall asleep…  Then the agony started.  The bed wasn’t long enough to fit my whole body into it laying down because I think they were designed for 5’4” Indians.  Also, the bus driver was outstandingly terrible.  He would punch the accelerator then slam on the breaks and swerve around dangerously sharp corners.  Because it was dark, I wasn’t able to see what the road looked like, but we were swerving left and right around corners so sharply I was constantly rolling back and forth across my bed.  I felt like I was on a ship in a storm.  When he slammed on the breaks, my head would hit the headboard.  I started feeling extremely carsick but prolonged the through-up about 7 hours until 6am when I finally gave in.  Because there were no bathrooms, I found a small plastic baggy that caught about 80% of my puke.  Unfortunately, that left 20% to roam free.  Without water to rinse my mouth, I ended up with puke breathe the remaining 5 hours.  Another interesting fact is that there are very little garbage bins in India because everyone just throws their trash outside.  Because the bus didn’t have a garbage or roll down windows, I had no choice but to stash my puke baggy in the shoe rack at the foot of my bed.  Disgusting…I know (haha).

Besides the gross puke story no-one really wanted to know about, I also thought multiple times that we were going to crash.  Because there is little traffic control in India, I’ve herd many people drive drunk.  The driver probably wasn’t drinking, but there were turns in which I would grab on for dear life as we took a 180 degree turn about 50 mph.  Since I was in a top bunk I could feel the bus lean and lean and lean until I thought it could have been on two wheels.  The driver would then gun it back up to 60 mph for about 50 yards, then hit the breaks back down to 40-50 mph and turn sharp the other direction.  SCARY!

I’m alive and well and loving India so far.  I expected obstacles and knew that this wasn’t going to be easy.  I have no regrets coming; have made good friends and memories that will last a lifetime!  Hope all is well in America.