A Harrowing Journey from Rishikesh to Jaipur

Neon green and red lights erupt against a smog-filled, Delhi night as we zoom past cows, cars, motorcycles, pigs, and pedestrians. I lock my eyes onto those neon lights as they seem to be the only thing not going anywhere. I am prone to instantaneous carsickness, a trait generously passed down from my mom. My eyes are puffy from exhaustion, my mouth sore from a clenched jaw and pursed lips, my chest tight from taking short breaths, my stomach empty from missing lunch and dinner, my legs cramped from scrunching them up against myself in tight spaces, and my feet - well they're just cold.

Earlier that day, we traveled to Delhi from Rishikesh by Volvo bus. It was an unexpected turn of events--we had originally booked first-class train tickets all the way back to Jaipur, but for some reason we could never get my aunt's ticket to confirm. I begrudgingly took Aaron's advice and booked a "luxury" Volvo bus from Rishikesh to Delhi and planned to switch to another "luxury" bus from Delhi to Jaipur. When I say "luxury", I simply mean that each person gets an assigned seat, there's AC capability, and the drivers stop at decent restrooms along the way. Our first leg to Delhi was about six hours and our second leg to Jaipur was estimated to be the same. My aunt and I had been traveling alone for the past four days with stunning success--few hassles and minimal rip-offs--I was basking in our triumphs and feeling overly confident in my own negotiating powers despite my very limited Hindi.

We arrived in Delhi and I stepped off the bus still resting on my laurels like the British in Boston just before the Americans pulled a surprise attack. We scampered to the metro station trailing an Indian friend we met on the bus who kindly offered to show us the way to the subway. That part was a breeze, finding the bus ticketing office was not. Delhi is all smoke and mirrors--the map I'd taken a screenshot of was laid out in a grid; I could clearly see the pin where the ticketing office was, but we just kept circling it, our backs weighed down like pack mules from all of the little trinkets and textiles that seemed like a good idea to buy at the time. The inevitable feeling of vulnerability set in; we were lost lambs in a sea of wolves. I felt each passerby's eyes bore into me as we wandered aimlessly through this tornado of people, cars, and animals. To my chagrin, I ended up calling Aaron and asking him to pull up his map and guide us from the metro station to the bus stop. He did and we got there, but that was only the beginning of a series of unfortunate events.

An Indian man stood outside the little ticketing shack spitting red stuff called "Ponn" out of his mouth into a long stream on the ground. He looked up as we trudged in, our hair and clothes disheveled from traipsing around for an hour looking for this damn place. I quickly realized that he did not speak any English, and neither did anyone else in the shop. I gestured and enunciated as best as I could, throwing in some Hindi words and numbers I'd heard Aaron say in this kind of context. He had no idea what I was saying until I held up five of my fingers and said,

"Bus...Jaipur...Volvo."

He shook his head which meant YES or IT'S POSSIBLE. Anything's possible in India, mind you. Relieved, we set off to find some food since we had two hours until our bus departed. Having regained my courage after securing our bus, I decided we should take a cycle rickshaw to find something to eat. We climbed up into the ancient cycle, trying to stuff ourselves in like buttoning an old pair of jeans two sizes too small. The 90 pound man tried his best to pedal but he ended up running and pulling the rickshaw through a mess of traffic. We scooted along for 15 minutes, looking ridiculous having hired a man who could clearly not carry us and all of our bags. He had no clue what I'd asked him to find because he took us further and further into the industrial part of the neighborhood. I kept saying,

"Khana, KHANA!"

And then held out my hand pretending to stuff food into my mouth.We hadn't seen a single restaurant, which is pretty much unheard of in India. I shouted for him to stop and we rolled ourselves out of the tiny cart, almost tipping it over. We ran across the busy road like two chickens about to be plucked and slaughtered, then hailed an auto rickshaw to take us back to the metro station. On the way, I got a call from a man at the main ticketing office. He calmly said,

"Your bus has been canceled. Can I give you a refund?"

 I yelled,

"NOOOOOO! I need to get to Jaipur NOW! Find me another bus."

He just kept repeating that he could give me a refund. Overcome with desperation, I hung up the phone and we went back to the metro (because we were lost again), found our way back to the ticketing office and I just stood there in front of the guy still spitting red stuff from his mouth.

"Is the bus CANCELED?" I really enunciated this time, opening my mouth as wide as I could.

"Cancel", he said.

I grabbed my face and shook my head as tears welled up, fast and hot. Then I laughed, a sort of maniacal laugh. My aunt waited quietly in the background, keeping the vibe calm.

"Get me another bus, now," I said between laughs.

All I heard is that there was a Sleeper non-AC bus leaving at the same time as our canceled bus. We booked it for 700 rupees total (that's about 12 bucks). At this point, I was just happy we were getting out of this hell hole. We trudged back over to the metro to find a bathroom and get something to drink. We cracked the bottles of soda and guzzled them wishing they were spiked with whiskey. Then, we took our fifteenth and final descent back to the ticketing office, passed the same sea of men who'd bleated at us like goats, and rolled into the ticketing office where they quickly corralled us into the bus like they didn't want us standing out in the open. As we stepped onto the bus, my heart sank, it was worse than I'd expected: two rows of cage-like sleepers on either side, so narrow we had to walk sideways to fit. Leery men hanging out of each sleeper like tigers ready to pounce.

We had booked the chairs since the word "sleeper" just sounded sketchy to me. There were five rows of chairs jammed into the back of the bus. One of ours was tied up with rope so that the back stayed up and didn't lay down in the lap of the passenger sitting behind it. The guy's chair in front of mine was broken but didn't have the clever rope fix. He was laying in my lap. We both started yelling at the guys in front of us to sit up. They seemed afraid of us after that. My aunt practically flew up to the front of the bus and demanded another seat. They ended up giving us a sleeper car. I sat in one of the roped chairs and my aunt crawled into one of the sleeper cages. We waited an hour all crunched up for the bus to leave. I have a touch of agoraphobia and have been known to panic in tight, stuffy spaces. This was my worst nightmare, breathing in thick, stale, urine-penetrated air and sitting within inches of too many people, making too much noise. Finally, the driver took off and I took in a long, slow breath out the window.

Men piled in at every stop, mysteriously cramming into one sleeper and disappearing, only to descend--like spiders from their webs at night--every 30 minutes when the bus stopped. They'd get snacks and pee on the walls by the little dhabas (roadside restaurants) and crawl back in. My aunt and I talked and blared music through our headphones trying to drown out the lingering fear that something could happen. I wrapped my headscarf tightly around my head because it always makes me feel safe like the old blanket-over-the-face trick when you hear a strange noise in the middle of the night. We had no way of knowing whether this was completely and utterly unsafe to do--you always hear bad stories about Indian buses--but we were here and all we could do was make it out alive. A million horrible, frightening things crossed my mind--I'm far too elaborate with my imagination for my own good--but I turned the music up louder and louder. It worked.

We made it to Jaipur after seven hours.