Waking up in a desert is cold. Running down a sand dune to make it back to your mattress in time for the self-timer on your camera is a lot harder than you might think. Realizing the saddle on your camel is a little lopsided makes the ride a full out work-out. The whole day was slightly askew, in a wonderful, but sometimes uncomfortable way. The whole night (all 18 hours of it) on a bus to Udaipur was not as wonderful. At least we weren’t sharing our sleeper cabin for two with two other people! At least we had baked goods to snack on. At least our window opened AND closed. (This is what optimism in India sounds like.)
Nearly all of us on the camel safari were heading out of the city at some point in the afternoon or evening. We would run into each other in the city buying souvenirs and having a third coffee or juice just to give us something to do. Little did we know, Andrew and I would be getting on the very worst bus ride yet.
I can assure you that I am not elaborating. Because at our first delay, I didn’t flinch (ok, maybe I did a little) when heavy parcels were being thrown onto the top of the bus. At our second delay, around one in the morning, I figured they would fix the bus soon, or the one person we were waiting for would arrive, regardless we would be on our way. And I fell asleep. Around three in the morning, Andrew nudged me awake, we hadn’t moved, another bus had arrived for us to get on instead. At our third delay, I opened up the window to the countryside. A tree and rocks, not a road were right outside my window. Other travelers opened up their windows. The Israeli in the cabin in front of our cabin, yelled at the men trying to fix the problem (of not being on a road!) by shoving rocks under the wheels that were not budging.
It. was. ridiculous.
We don’t know if they were avoiding roads with tolls… or maybe it had something to do with the heavy parcels on top of the bus that they didn’t want to get caught with… or maybe the heavy parcels weighed the bus down so much that it didn’t matter what kind of road we were driving on, it would be a problem… or maybe the combination of all of the buses we’ve been on in India are so old- too old- that they shouldn’t be on the road?
It still could have been worse. We could have been in the sleeper compartment the Korean girl was in with a window that wouldn’t close. She woke up at some point in the middle of the night without her bag. (It fell out of the window while she was sleeping) Apparently her passport was in that bag. We rolled into Udaipur around 9 or 10 in the morning, exhausted, to say the least. But, it could have been worse.
