Backpacks, drums, restless bumpy bus rides and long lasted return to Pondi.

Actually has this post already been summed up in the title, but I could try to explain a bit more even though your fantasy could do the rest more interesting. Yesterday, at 5.30, I got up, had a shower, cleaned my wounds and packed my stuff together. I went down to the junction near our hotel in Munnar where me and Paul parted ways for the last time in India. He went back to Kerala and would finish up north while I had to get back to Pondicherry for my final week. I went up to the Tamil Nadu bus stand where I met a sleepy bus driver that told me that the bus would leave at 7.00 AM and not 6.30 as I was told. I asked if I could wait inside the bus, and that was OK. At 6.23 we were on our way. This Indian time is a mysterious wonder by itself.

The bus trip was really interesting....and scary. The long, steep hillsides of Munnar is nothing you want to challenge. Tell that to the bus driver. I found out that the best thing was to try to sleep. Close the eyes, lean back, listen to the engine and hope that no one starts screaming. That trick actually helped a whole lot. Everyone told me that the bus was an express bus to Coimbatore. They were wrong. After much discussions back and forth I finally got on to the right bus that we changed to. This went to Coimbatore, but no one on the bus could help me to find the bus stand where the bus to Pondicherry, or Chennai, left from. So I just got off at a bus station. Of course, the wrong one... From this point out I had a lot of helpers. At least seven of them. I felt like Snow White, not referring to skin color as one could imagine. I have never gotten that many business cards in my whole life;

- "Call me if you need any help!"
"Yes, I will."
- "No, but seriously, call me!"

Anyhow, the people of Coimbatore are very helpful and wonderful beings, and even though all buses to Pondicherry were full, they managed to get me the last seat on a local bus. And the guy who managed that really didn't know how much that meant to me. Spending one night at a hotel in Coimbatore only waiting for the buses the day after to leave was not what I could dream of unless having a nightmare. The samaritan looked at me as I was stark raving mad when I shook his hand and thanked him of all my heart.

At this point the clock was 13.17, the bus would leave at 20.30. So what do you do in a town you don't know, where it was hard enough trying to find the bus stand to leave from, and you really won't lose that position again? You stay!

Or at least you stay in the area. I think I didn't leave further away than 5 minutes from the bus stand. Luckily it was a hotel close by with both restaurant and bar. Next door was an Internet Cafe. So the linear story was the following:

1. Thali at the hotel restaurant, which was the best thali meal I've had in India.
2. Internet at the internet cafe.
3. And finally cricket and a couple of KingFisher's at a dark hotel bar where sunlight was denied by thick curtains.
   

Now there was only one and a half hours left. I left for the bus stand where Indian eyes meassured me up, down and sideways as if westerners never travel around India in local buses, which they actually may not do... too much... After an hour the bus arrived and I could kill the last 30 minutes killing mosquitoes in stead. The journey for Pondicherry lasted for nine hours on bumpy roads and hard seats. But the prize at the end of the rope was getting a double room in Pondicherry with an own rooftop and view over the bay of Bengal. And after breakfast and a little rest I'm now ready to take on to Pondicherry once again. This is it. The last week. Cherish every waking moment.


P.S.: while taking the bus I started thinking of every person we have met that hasn't been mentioned here. We have met some very interesting people; from the crazy scotsman in Varkala to the 15 year old Brahmin kid from Mumbai at the hotel in Kottayam that I amazed with card tricks. The local auto repair man from Coimbatore that just wanted me to call to the two Boston girls in Munnar that didn't want me to sit alone eating lunch in a local restaurant. And there are many, many more, but of course I can't write all their life stories and the impressions that they left. But maybe they'll end up in a book once, along with stories about power failure, rooms full of cockroaches and staff that unexpectedly enters your room at night while you're sleeping to hold your hand. India is amazing and hard to explain, but it's worth trying, right?