Welcome to Ajmer?

After my hospital ‘visit’ I was itching to get out of Jaipur. Wooo! While I was pooping away in the hospital some of the group had traveled to a magical land called Pushkar. My friend Anne and I decided that we needed to go. We barely planned the trip- something I admired about our journey. We briefly went off the itinerary our friends planned the previous weekend. We took a richshaw hoping to somehow find a bus that takes us to our desired destination. Good luck to us. But the free flowing spirit of Anne had immersed itself in me. We’d figure it out, and wherever we ended up…we ended up.

Within the first 5 seconds of getting out of the cramped backseat where dust from the road has permanently settled, we are bombarded with men trying to help us book our tickets. We knew our friends had taken an overcrowded government bus that went straight to Pushkar. “Pushkar, Pushkar, government bus,” we had to yell amidst the horn-honking and persistent beggars. A man pointed to a bus just a few feet away… “Pushkar, 200 rupees.” There was too much commotion going on to tell well…to tell what was ACTUALLY going on. Anne and I had our money out and the man simply plucked 200 rupees from our hands without our consent, wrote us a ticket and pointed to the bus. That bus it is.

From the moment the man had wrote us our tickets we knew it wasn’t the bus our friends had taken. The bus resembled somewhat of an over-used Megabus complete with gods and goddess enveloped in garlands of orange and pink flowers. This was definitely too nice. Anne and I took our seats and waited for the bus to depart. We were excited as we, apart from two other business-looking men seemed to be the only ones embarking on the 7-hour long journey. The bus lurched forward and we were off, slowly picking up families and business men who stand on the roadsides with glittering, eye-striking sari’s and clean-cut button down shirts in contrast to the brown and barren landscape. When the bus picked people up, it didn't even stop…going the speed of a merry-go-round. The ‘to-be’ passengers jogged alongside holding what luggage they have and hopped on. What was a bus filled with 4 passengers in the beginning became incredibly crowded. I think we had a good enough crowd to create our own colony if the bus became stranded. There were three people in seats meant for two…the aisle was completely full, people ] sat on the steps to which you enter the bus. People even sat up front with the bus driver in his alcove. Just when I thought the bus would have to turn people away…the driver allowed more people. What the…? An elderly lady nudged her way to our seat, causing us to be friendlier than ‘bugs in a rug.’ I hopped out of my seat and sat on my backpacking backpack, to make room. This proved only so comfortable for about…hmmmm…let’s see 3 minutes and my back began to ache. The awkward positioning of my body begot stares from other passengers. The driver motioned for me to sit up with him in the front. I obeyed…not wanting to cause more of a scene.

Anne, from Minneapolis woot woot! and I

The rest of journey was spent praying for my life as I had a front seat to the insane and life-threatening driving a drunk driver couldn’t even manifest. No wonder the driver had so many gods displayed on his dashboard. Riding buses, ok not even buses but all vehicles in India are equivalent to riding the Knight bus Harry Potter rides in Prisoner of Azkaban. I kid you not. Replace the shrunken heads with Ganesh (the elephant god) and Shiva, add smelly Indian men who don’t wear deodorant, the drivier swerving for cows and goats plus and some Rajasthani music (traditional music of the state I am living in) with gypsies singing and there you go. Welcome to India J. I wouldn’t have had that bus ride any other way. After a daze of a hot and dusty view, squished between an elderly man who could not smile for his life and the dashboard loaded with idols, Anne and I were told to get off the bus.

“Pushkar? Ye Pushkar hai (This is Pushkar?)” we asked. I was so ready to exit the bus and to stretch my legs. The whole bus stared at us; I guess it was pretty obvious with our English accents and backpacking backpacks that gave us away as spacey tourists.

“Nahi, (No),” the driver said. “Go that way to another bus.”

Brittany, Anne and Gretchen at the Jaipur Literature Festival

So much for not planning the trip, where the hell were we?

"Ye Ajmer hai (This is Ajmer)."

Alright...let the trip begin...