Wandering Thoughts: April 2005

Bus travel in South India

Well lets start by categorizing the buses and as we go along I will try to explain what happened to me. The buses can be divided into two major categories Government operated and Privately operated. The Government operated buses are usually pretty badly maintained and during most of your travel you might experience the feeling of being inside a rattler (a kind of toy and not a kind of snake). These buses can be further classified by the speed with which they travel, the faster the bus the lesser the number of stops and more the cost of travel.

Passenger bus, makes frequent stops, stinks a bit, usually crowded to the point of overflow, very cheap, slow (as in tortoise slow)

Fast passenger, lesser stops, crowded, cheap, slow

Super Fast, few stops, fast, rattles quiet a bit coz of higher speeds, causes queasiness to passengers who are not used to be jolted around, not recommended for people with heart conditions or are afraid of dying

Lightning Express - the name says it all

Now the private buses are a menace, they run by their own time have no respect for the passengers, you cant argue with them, if they are a few hours late they have nobody to answer to etc etc
I got on a bus that was supposed to reach Chennai before 8 in the morning at a certain destination where my cousin was supposed to pick me up. Bear in mind that these people guarantee times without actually meaning to. I had an appointment at the Embassy at 1045 am. The bus takes a different route than its supposed to since they didnt have enough people on the bus for the normal route. Nobody can actually question them about this either. We enter Chennai citi limits around 930 and get stuck in traffic and they decide that they are going to drop people off where they want to instead of where they said they would. I have to call my cousin and change the point of pickup. We reach the point of pick up at 1035am and I am a total mess after travelling all night. We go into a hotel and they charge us exorbitant rates just to take a shower and change clothes and my cousin driving like a maniac managed to get me at the Embassy by 1055am. If it had been past 11 they would have cancelled my appointment.
And then coming back, the bus decides that it wants to transport some cargo to make extra money and we are in this stupid place with trucks unloading cargo and taking on some cargo for about 2 hours and when people started complaining, the bus driver and conductor basically asked everyone to go to hell and told them that if they had any complaints to take it up with the owner. Well that bus didnt get me to my house and I had to take one of the Superfast buses to get home. Quite a rattling adventure I should say.
Overall, I have had enough of buses for a while.
Thats all for now..

From India

So India is just as I remembered, hot and humid and homely. Everything is pretty much the same here, buildings have come up and others have gone down but other than that all the people are the same. Its always comforting to see something static in your life, even if it is just a false sense. Anywayz.. it was so good to be home, even though sometimes its so hard to figure out where home really is coz right now I miss everything back home lol, my darling girlfriend and my Loui and Kodiac and Maddeline and all my other friends as much as I am enjoying home here.
All the markets and the festivals and such are so much fun. I am posting some pictures. Enjoy them.