Travel, Bangalore and the Monsoon

The bus journey from Bombay to Bangalore was not as bad as I had expected, so by the time we finally arrived the following afternoon in Bangalore I was feeling fairly fresh and ready to arrange the final leg of my first trip across the country. Once we were out of Bombay I was treated to a few recent Bollywood films, two out of three of which had English subtitles; so I was able to enjoy them thoroughly. I had never really watched any Bollywood films in the past so it was interesting to see how they are structured; the actors are liable to break into song at regular intervals, and although I don't really care for musicals, the songs were generally quite good. I was amused to see that in all of the films (all of which had a central love theme as part of the plot) they made no differentiation between love and lust. In fact when the main hero and heroines saw each other for the first time, it wasn't long in any of the films before one or both of them burst into song about how they were suddenly in love. The marriage culture is very strong here in India so I suppose these films are just another form of propoganda encouraging people to comform.

The bus stopped at a small service station at around 21:00 so I was able to get some noodles and chai before we were back on the bus with another movie loaded. The chap I was sitting next to spoke only very fractured English but we were able to have some limited conversation, so the journey was kept fairly interesting. A little before midnight there was a colossal lightning storm with torrential rain which lasted until the early hours. After another short stop at a larger service station in the morning where I had the dubious experience of using my first Indian toilet (after which I will now be strictly following the practice of using only my right hand) and enjoying a few breakfast items which I again have no idea as to the ingredients or name of, we once again got comfortable for the last stretch to Bangalore.

When I arrived in Bangalore the first thing that hit me was the smell, a gag inducing combination of urine, vomit and dead rat. Yeah it was pretty nasty stuff. After I had got my bearings and something to eat it was already getting on towards 15:00 so I hastily took an autorickshaw to the main bus stand (known for some reason as 'Majestic') where after some investigating I learned there was an overnight bus scheduled to leave at 19:00 for Pondicherry. After waiting in line for a good 30 minutes I booked my seat and had a sit down in the shade to decide what to do in the time until I left. Seeing as it was already getting on and the main attractions were close to closing, I decided instead to have a wander round and try to find myself an internet cafe to wile away a few hours. Unlike in Bombay I was not confronted by a single tout, scammer or beggar, which went a long way towards making up for the smell. Although Bangalore is India's technological capital; known in fact as India's silicon valley; it actually took me a surprisingly long time to find myself a cyber cafe, and when I finally did it was a grubby back alley place with excruciatingly slow connections. No doubt I was just in the wrong part of the city.

Nonetheless after spending a few hours browsing the net and simultaneously charging up my MP3 player for the looming eight hour trip to Pondicherry, I sampled some of the delicious street food to fill my apetite and then set about finding my way to the specific bus station from which I would be departing. Just as I was making my way towards a few autorickshaws, the monsoon through which I had passed on my way here finally caught up with me and the heavens were well and truly opened. Now, as an Englishman I can claim somewhat reasonably to be accustomed to rain, but even I raised an eyebrow and the volume of rain that came down. I quickly found myself a richshaw (after turning down two and having a hard bartering session with the third) who drove me the 30 minutes through the flooding streets to the bus station, where after another 40 minute wait I boarded the bus.

During the few hours I had spent on the internet I had emailed Claudine, my friend in Pondy, the details of my arrival time as something somewhere around 03:00 and she had very kindly agreed to wait up for me. I was therefore incredibly frustrated when due to people arriving late the damn bus didn't leave until nearly two hours after it's scheduled departure time. I suppose it's nice that they didn't want to leave anyone behind but when someone was waiting up into the small hours for me I really wished they would get a bloody move on. Anyway we finally got going, and although it was much shorter, this leg of the trip was a lot less pleasant than the first on account of the fact that my seat unfortunately turned out to be right over the rear wheels, and with the nonexistant suspension of the vintage bus and the often poor road quality; I was constantly being thrown into the air making sleep almost impossible. Still, due to the rain it was at least relatively cool.

We finally arrived at 06:00 just as it was starting to get light. I quickly got an autorickshaw to the address I'd been given and, drenched (as it had been raining continually throughout the night as well as when I arrived) I finally arrived at my destination. Claudine, bless her, was waiting for me when I got out of the richshaw and quickly showed me in and after a brief chat I was able to crash out on a bed and get some much needed sleep.