Since January we have been on the move, never in the same place for more than a few weeks and rarely for more than a few days. We’ve found ourselves in planes, trains and automobiles. On bicycles, of the human powered variety as well as electric. Not to mention motorcycles and all manner of rickshaws. We’ve been on boats, ferries, on a raft, riden a tractor, I’ve been in a truck (or rather, on top of), in busses and on top of a pile of logs in a funky two-wheeled tractor.
But we’ve been in India for nearly 4 months and so that is where I will stay focused. Because the transport in India seems like a world unto itself.
In order to get from place to place we rely mostly on busses and trains, and the Lonely Planet – the guide we have used throughout – has a section at the end of every stop titled “Getting There and Away.” It’s a very useful collection of the pertinent air, bus, boat, or train options to get to or from wherever you happen to be. It’s this section – these sorts of transports – that are propelling this post.
I should detour (or, as they say here, diversion) for a moment to mention that for getting around a city, we rely mostly on autorickshaws or walking. Traveling by auto is a strange and sometimes scary beast of its own. You just sort of play bumper cars from start to finish, hoping you never actually touch another vehicle, pedestrian or cow. You also have to work hard to get a fair price. Usually, at least. But let’s get back to those busses and trains, shall we?
India has an extensive and impressive, even if overly romanticized, railway system. You can get a train from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. Except when you can’t. But usually you can; when we wanted to go from Jodhpur to Dharamsala we figured it would be a shot in the dark. Turns out, there was a daily train that went directly to the nearest station. Of course, it took about 20 hours.
That’s one thing about trains in India. They aren’t fast. But it does give you time to enjoy, embrace and at times despise the Indian railway culture. For overnight trains, the primary class of service is “Sleeper (SL).” In this setup, at either end of the train car you have a set of toilets. Then you have an aisle down the car, which is roughly dividing the car into 1/4 and 3/4. On the 1/4 side you have two seats facing each other, which both fold down to create a bed for one person to sleep lengthwise (there is another bed above, which is always just a bed). On the 3/4 side you have two long benches facing each other, each of which hold 3 people (so 6 in this area). Up top one bunk is available permanently (sleeping width-wise), while the seat back for the bottom bench folds up to become a middle bunk. (Follow this link and scroll down a little to “Sleeper Class” for some photos)
The thing about SL, is that it’s used by the masses. You get relatively well-to-do Indians who don’t want to (or can’t) pay the significantly higher price for AC, as well as comparatively poor villagers who are on a great adventure. As well as everything in between. Until “bedtime,” which in train culture usually means 9 or 10pm, the seating is somewhat of a free-for-all. Not that it’s supposed to be, but in practice, people sit wherever they darn well please.
When rIAm, Bianca and I traveled from Bhopal to Mumbai, we had three sleeper berths, but unfortunately not together. We did manage to get them in the same car. As we boarded and came to our first seat, we discovered about 9 Indians crammed into the 6 seats (on the 3/4 side), one of which was supposed to be ours. Special. We pressed on and found our one seat on the 1/4 side open, so we set down bags and Bianca got settled in. I soldiered on to find the third seat, which fortunately was in a set of 6 that was only occupied by a woman and her young son. The second seat with Bianca was open and I considered just putting rIAm’s bag under it, but decided to put two down at our third seat. rIAm sat with me where there was room for two and Bianca sat alone, only to discover several Indian men climbed up to the upper berth – Bianca’s berth – and were just hanging out. Another sat across from Bianca. The two above, when queried, seemed to say they would move for Bianca to sleep. We pretty much gave up on our first seat; in the area for 8 people on both sides of the aisle I counted at least 12 Indians. Fortunately for us, the Ticket Collector worked some sort of magic and gave us the seat opposite Bianca and all was fine. Until, of course, a baby started crying and was never calmed down by its mother or father. All night long.
Also consider the case I mentioned above, with rIAm, linda and I going from Jodhpur to Pathankot (for Dharamsala). We had 3 of 6 seats in one set of 6: a lower and upper on one side and a middle on the other. This was fine and dandy, except a grandma sitting in the same area wanted our lower in exchange for her middle because she couldn’t climb so well. We agreed, being nice and all, but when she wanted to sleep, we were stuck having to move. Although we got our “revenge” in the morning when both rIAm and I (we took the two middles) slept way past all the Indians, which kept people from being able to sit very comfortably down below. The real kicker, though, was during the next day when we were sitting. Only the four of us were actually sitting in this area; the other two people who slept in our area were with family or friends in other sections to sit. We arranged ourselves two on one bench and two on the other. It was very convenient for our group of three, as conversation and card playing was much easier. But then grandma shooed rIAm off the bench so she could lay down and sleep.
These really aren’t such serious complaints; they are amusing more than anything else now. Although the crying baby was especially frustrating. But there are plenty of other interesting things about riding the rails.
Typically, in the morning – and especially in the AC classes – seemingly the entire train car heads to one of the sinks (one on either end) to brush their teeth. People and families bring their tiffins – Indian style metal “lunchboxes” – filled with chapatti and food for the trip. And in true Indian hospitality fashion, if they see foreigners with no tiffin (as, inevitably, is the case), they become almost belligerent in offering us food. Indians, it seems, know how to travel by train; we’ve even seen an Indian family string up a blanket to serve as a cradle for their baby, hanging between the seats on the 3/4 side.
Overall, we’ve found train travel to be a good way to travel. It gets frustrating at times to deal with the beaurocratic booking process (you need to have a form properly filled out, but to fill out the form you need information from the person you will eventually have to give the form to – that would be the form containing the information the person is giving you…). And the toilets are often disgusting, at best (not to mention that whatever business you do lands on the tracks, hence the request to refrain from using the toilet while stopped at stations). Plus, Sleeper class can have a pretty high grunge factor. But overall, we know what we’re going to get, it will be a smooth ride, and we’ll sleep reasonably well.
Of course, you can also travel by bus in India. And many, many Indians do. Basically every bus we’ve been on, at least for some portion of its journey, has, at least, all its seats taken. The problem with the government busses, run by each state, is that you often just don’t know what you’re going to get. And, sadly, usually it’s not very good.
From Dharamsala to Delhi we had what amounted to a very good overnight bus. The seats went back pretty far, were very nicely cushioned, and even had a headrest that held your head in place while you slept. Of course, it was really a pretty crappy bus that didn’t handle bumps too well, but they put nice seats into it.
From Goa to Hospet (gateway to Hampi) we had the “semi-luxury” 10 hour bus. It was the only way to get where we wanted to go; in a few weeks the season will really begin and private companies will start offering their services again. In any case, we knew it was a 2×3 setup, but what we got was even less luxury than the minimally-luxurious bus we were expecting. The seats were barely cushioned, and at the end was a vertical pole (for standees to hold, I guess) that effectively gave us the seating space exactly equal to 2cm less than the width of rIAm’s and my rear ends, seated. And the seat in front was about the same distance too close to really fit my knees. Of course, I had the aisle to relieve this problem.
Except I didn’t. Because not only was every seat taken, but people were pretty much literally climbing all over each other to fill up every last space of the bus. I have no idea how the conductor worked up and down to collect all his fares, but I know it included extensive squeezing and sucking-in of guts. I had the distinct pleasure of having one of India’s many plump women in the aisle next to me. (I should digress here to mention – or remind you – that the notion of personal space in India is non-existent).
Fortunately, a few people got down relatively early in the journey, relieving some pressure, but we were still packed in tight. We did come to our lunch stop, though (this is a feature of many Asian bus routes – they make a half hour stop for lunch or dinner at some restaurant along the way). And, after extracating my shoulder from the rolls of this woman’s stomach, I was able to get up and stretch.
The good news was that nearly every passenger went no further than Hubli, which left a bit less than half the journey with a nearly empty bus, when those of us remaining were happy to stretch out across several seats. This generally made up for having been squeezed, poked, elbowed, squished, used as a shelf and slept on during the first 6 hours or so.
The thing about these government buses is that even though some of them take reservations, most Indians don’t bother. You pay 10-20 rupees for the reservation – well worth it to us; we had seats on the above trip – but many Indians would rather pay the cheaper fare when they get on the bus. So everybody fights to get in to get themselves a seat (and sadly relinquishes it, to rIAm, for example, when she shows a reserved ticket to the formerly gleeful Indians in our seats).
India also has plenty of private bus companies, which are supposed to be good value. They provide a coach bus, sometimes with A/C, and offer both sitting and sleeper options. You don’t pay too much more than the government busses, but you get a better ride. And a better sleep. But these are sometimes just as iffy, and in three sleeper rides we’ve had ok, good and godawful. With the terrible ride from Pune to Goa in mind, we’ve pretty much decided that while we may not get a great bus, we at least won’t feel like we’re getting ripped off with the government buses.
So with this in mind, we tolerated a super bumpy ride from Hospet to Mysore in reasonably comfortable seats that very disappointingly did not recline at all. Not the greatest sleep, but no worse than the bad private bus, and not a big financial investment.
Similarly, as we worked our way from Mysore to Mangalore, with some stops in between, most notably to visit a Tibetan colony, we stuck with the government buses (really, the only option anyway). So when we asked at the station which bus would take us to Kushalnagar (the stop for the colony we wanted), it was a great and pleasant surprise to find a nice looking bus (most buses here look like they are on their last legs, after a career in bumper-buses) equipped with super comfortable and reclining seats. All it lacked was A/C, but that was no problem since the temperatures around that area were not too bad, thanks to a bit of elevation and some cooling rains.
The thing about buses, you see, is not that we don’t like them. They are an effective way to get from place to place, often going from city center to city center, and also, typically, requiring little or no advance booking. It’s convenient. But the roads in India, as a general rule, are total crap. Filled with potholes and often crumbling. And the shock absorbers on Indian buses often appear to be non-existent.
So, imagine our surprise, when after visiting with some lovely Tibetans we find ourselves back at the Kushalnagar bus station looking for a bus to Madikeri, a bit bigger place with better sleeping options, and we are directed to a beautiful, air-conditioned, coach style Volvo bus, complete with comfortable reclining seats. It may have taken us 40 minutes to go the final 14 kms due to crap road, but that was one sweet ride. Although rIAm looked at me with shock when I mentioned how much I liked the A/C. She was kind of angry with the irony of it all; we’ve had plenty of bus rides on major routes in 35 or 40+ degree C weather with no A/C. That night, with incredibly nice temperatures outside (we were at even higher elevation), we had A/C. And then again the next day, when we plied the way to Mangalore, on a day that featured incredibly pleasant temperatures. This is a bit like the person who shovels out from blizzard after blizzard all winter long, only to get a snow blower for that last dusting of snow in March. In any case, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation is our new favorite government bus service.
From here on out we will undoubtedly use a mix of buses and trains and face the same question we faced today, for tomorrow’s overnight journey: Take the train, arriving a bit too early but offering better sleeping options, or take the bus, which may be very uncomfortable and super bumpy, providing bad sleeping conditions (but arriving at a bit better time)?
This time? We booked the train.
Next time? Stay tuned.
