There is only 1 rule on an Indian bus...

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  Joshimath, Uttarakhand, India
Saturday, September 20, 2008

....the bus is never full!!!!!!!!!

Looks like the last entry was done while I was still in Rishikesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas.  Since then I've moved northeast into the mountains.  Took a bus ride to Gaurikund where the road ends.  It was a very small town that is just a series of alleys, no vehicles!  It was nice not having to breathe in diesel or hear a thousand rickshaw drivers say, "where you want go sir?"  Gaurikund is the starting point for the Hindu pilgrimage to the temple in the village of Kedarnath.  It was a 14km hike each way on a stone path through forests initially then it opened up and some nice views were to be seen.

So instead of being asked over and over if I needed a rickshaw or taxi, the question when leaving town is "need horse sir?"  There were thousands of mules, donkeys, and horses for hire for the trek to the temple.  After about 7km I thought of renting a mule for the rest of the way but decided against it, 28km is a long way to walk I learned.  Needless to say, the path was well fertilized, they didn't have donkey restrooms. Luckily I was wearing shoes unlike some of the sadhus (holy guys) who don't wear shoes.

I thought I was in decent shape, at least until I saw people being carried by other people up a freaking mountain!  They would have four little Indian dudes with a type of chair with two cross beams that the carriers would put on their shoulders  And to top it all off, they don't walk when they come down the mountain.  They jog!!!!  I have some pics that hopefully I can put up tomorrow, the internet here is through satellite and it's really cloudy, the guy here said I can try tomorrow it's supposed to be clear.

So after 1.5 days in Gaurikund and Kedarnath I took another bus to Rudraprayag which isn't too far from Gaurikund, 100km, but with the terrible "roads" it took a long time, 4 hours if I'm not mistaken.  Stayed in Rudraprayag for an afternoon and evening, then this morning took a bus to Joshimath, where I currently am.  Bus ride wasn't too far but it took about 7 hours. 

Like I said earlier, the only rule on an Indian bus is that it is never full!!!!!!!!   Every seat would be taken , the aisle would be jammed with people, and then we'd stop and somehow squeeze in another group of people.  There were times when the bus was so full that there would literally be one guy with one foot on the bus, one arm holding on to a bar and the other arm wrapped around someone in the bus, it was complete mayhem.

The "roads" here in the mountains are so curvy and broken up that at times it's more like driving through a pile of boulders.   Normally the road is about as wide as a one-way road in America.  But every mile or so there would be a landslide that might have occurred a day ago or maybe 2 years ago, who knows?  But when that was the case the driver would just squeeze the bus through with a few inches left to spare from a fall of a thousand feet or more, to top it off it was raining for nearly all three bus trips.  What's hilarious is when the bus takes turns, they have to honk to let any oncoming traffic know that they're there.  And when we'd meet another vehicle on a turn both drivers slam on the brakes and then one of the vehicles has to go in reverse until there is a spot to allow the other vehicle to pass.  There was one landslide today that completely blocked the road, so we had to sit for about an hour till it was cleared up.

It's quite different here how they build roads.  In the US we have all this fancy  mechanical equipment, cones, warning signs, etc.  Here in India there is none of that.  There will literally be 100 people just beating rocks with old rusted hammers just trying to break the rocks into smaller pieces so that they can build retaining walls or fill in huge potholes.  And there's no safety regulations, you'll come around a bend in the road and there will be a big rock that would break an axle, so the driver hits the breaks and steers around it, other times we'd come around a curve and there'd just be some dude walking with his 10 cows or mules right in the middle of the road!

Don't know my plans yet for the next few days.  Will stay at least two nights here in Joshimath then might head back to Rishikesh.  I want to do some day hiking here but it's a lot different than in the US.  Here, you could walk for a day on a path but there are still people living and working along the trail.  From what I know you have to walk a few days on an unmotorized trail till you get away from it all.  And I don't really have the gear to go over night, I have a hammock but I think it gets too cold here at night for my tastes, and the thought of getting lost in the Himalayas doesn't sound too fun.

Thanks for reading!

namaste

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