Want to lose ten pounds in an hour?
Try to catch a bus in India.
Seriously- I’ve done the math. Through numerous, personally-conducted experiments, I bring to you a scientific breakdown of how this weight-loss technique works.
Your weight-loss breakdown is as follows:
2 pounds– Mental Exertion Stage. Examples: “why is my bus not here at it’s scheduled time? Did I miss it? Is it parked somewhere else? Is it delayed? Can I effectively ask these questions and understand the resulting answers to them in Hindi? Should I get snacks?”
3 Pounds- Detective Stage, aka walking the equivalent of eight miles trying to one, locate your bus and two, locate a human who can locate your bus (because one is always a bit of a long-shot).
4 Pounds- Usain Bolt Stage. Literally, truly and unexaggeratedly making a dead-ass sprint for your bus when you realize, despite all aforementioned efforts, that your bus is moving at a relatively high speed away from you halfway down the road.
1 Pound- Airborne MMA Stage. Hurling your body through the same door that several other human beings are also attempting to catapult themselves through. Really here we want to focus on your upper-body strength. A gentle elbow to someone’s ribs and a hearty yank on the door frame should victoriously pull you inside of this marvelous moving vehicle.
Disclaimer: you’re on your own finding a seat.
Other Disclaimer: if you are in Delhi in the summer, you may add an additional 5 pounds to this algorithm to account for loss of bodily fluids via sweat.
How, you ask, was I able to develop this genius, science-proven formula? From a set of very lively personal experiences, I have extrapolated and analyzed key data points to see what overall trends arise in the great sport of Indian Bus-Catching, which is really just a super-foofy way of saying that I’ve caught the bus a lot in India, and I’ve seen some shit.
So without further adieu, let’s count down the favorites, shall we?
5. Bus Sprinting
A sport yet to be introduced to much of the world, the activity of tracking down and sprinting after busses requires Olympic-level athleticism.
Sarthak and I sit patiently at the Manali bus stand, which is more just a hectic parking lot with a high concentration of busses, waiting for ours to take us on our next Recce trek assignment that we are carrying out for Bikat Adventures, the adventure tourism company that we work for.
Three out of the five stories in this blog, by the way, involve the two of us haphazardly attempting to transport ourselves via the public transportation system. I’m starting to think he’s just as cursed bus-wise as I am.
I’m excited because we are headed to scout out a new trail to Ghepan Ghat, a lake that may or may not exist up a valley for an unspecified number of kilometers outside the small village of Sissu.
If we ever get there, at least.
The bus is now an hour and a half late, and Sarthak periodically walks the bus station (parking lot) to check if our bus has arrived yet.
No sign of it.
I can read the Hindi placards displaying each bus’ destination well enough, but sometimes one or two will fall through the cracks, given I’m still not ultra-comfortable with the different हिन्दी script.
As each bus enters the station (parking lot), a woman announces its arrival and destination via a loudspeaker. We are listening for “Keylong.”
“Delhi.”
“Dehradun.”
“Shimla.”
No Keylong.
So we wait, soaking up our last internet access for the foreseeable future, snacking on biscuits.
Sarthak and I at this point are deep into a typical discussion about how a local guide on his last trek to Auden’s Col cooked a goat for the crew and then proceeded to drink its brain (ew), when we both hear “Keylong,” and immediately perk up and shut up.
I start to say, “yay, it’s here!” and stop mid-sentence as I see Sarthak’s face change. The rest of the loudspeaker message is in Hindi I can’t understand yet, but whatever it is, it’s not good.
That was an understatement.
He snaps out of it, and grabbing his backpack, yells, “Run!”
We hurl our backpacks (25kg/50lb backpacks, mind you) over our shoulders and I follow in a blind sprint behind him for some unspecified reason.
Sensing my understandable confusion, as we run past rickshaws, humans and dogs, he screams over his backpack-laden shoulder, “they didn’t announce this one as it arrived,” he pauses and inhales heavily because we are truly sprinting, and then finishes, “they announced it as it left.”
About 200 feet ahead, I look where Sarthak is pointing just in time to see the red taillights of our bus round the corner and disappear.
Shit.
If I had a quarter for every expletive I have screamed, muttered or otherwise uttered during my times catching a bus in India, I’d be freakin’ loaded.
Anyways, it’s good thing we’re used to hiking quickly with an obscene amount of crap strapped to our backs on a regular basis, or this story would have ended very differently.
Despite thinking I was going to fall into a pothole several times and be stuck here forever, our flailing arms and breathless screaming caught the attention of some pedestrians in front of the bus, who in turn alerted the driver to our ridiculous state.
Does he stop?
Ha.
No, he breaks, sort of, and we, still sprinting, hurl ourselves through the doorway (losing 1 scientifically-proven pound in the process), and seat ourselves for the 12 hour ride to follow.
I say that when I’m not on a trek assignment, that it’s the busses keeping me fit.
This, of course, is a joke. But then again, a little unexpected cardio never hurt anyone.
4. Eternal Bus Station
We have a new character to introduce for this story. Pankaj, one of the owners at Bikat, was riding the same bus as me from Delhi to Dehradun- me for a trek to Kedar Tal (which was freaking beautiful) and him for some meetings.
This is a good thing.
Why? You ask?
Remember stages 1-3 of my weight loss formula above? Suddenly they no longer apply, for all long-term Delhites are master bus-finders.
I’m off the hook just this once.
So we board our bus like normal humans (well, except the fact that the bus was two hours late, but this is old news), and sit back to enjoy the seven hour, overnight bus ride.
Except this wouldn’t be in the countdown if that was the end, would it?
We finally roll out of Delhi’s ISBT bus station and onto the wide open road-
The bus stops. Literally three feet outside the exit gate.
“Well that went by fast,” I joke, in the way that you joke when you’re really actually not amused with the situation at all.
An eruption of sound from the front of the bus ensues. Yelling, shouting, arguing- all in Hindi of course, so I’m kinda just left with watching everyone’s facial expressions on the bus to gauge how worried I should be.
Answer: a little, and a lot.
Pankaj tells me that they’re arguing with the bus driver over the functionality of the air-conditioner.
Well that was far worse than I imagined. Granted, I’ve never seen someone get so fist fight-ready over something as trivial as AC, but then again this is Delhi in the dead of summer, so all bets are off.
I’m worried though, because I have to get to Dehradun to meet up with the rest of the trekking crew I will be accompanying.
The problem? I need to get there in time, or else I don’t catch the 12 hour jeep with them, hence I do not make it to the trek in time.
Should be alright though.
The screaming intensifies, and the bus driver literally stomps off the bus, yanking the keys from the ignition, and walks, fuming, away down the road into the night.
Should be alright though?
I just look at Pankaj and giggle, because honestly, what else do you do at this point?
So we sit, now three hours behind, and basically wait for either the driver to return out of the spirit of forgiveness or for someone to hotwire the bus.
Suddenly raised voices can be heard outside, one of them being the driver’s (which at this point, given the frequency of his yelling, I recognize).
A man with a turban stands between the driver and several men who have climbed off the bus to continue their grievances, mediating.
Pankaj, leaning over me with his ear out the window, is giving me a play-by-play of what’s going down.
If he ever decides entrepreneurialism isn’t for him, being a sports commentator is a solid alternative.
The men are upset because they’ve paid for a bus with AC (which is extra here), but it’s only blowing out room-temperature air. In Delhi, a non-air conditioned room is the equivalent of a slightly underperforming incubator, for reference.
The driver, meanwhile, explains via the saintly turban man that the bus will have AC, but it needs to be moving for the system to work, so it hasn’t had time yet to start up.
The men, grunting, seem to finally realize that this is an acceptable answer, and also that they are keeping about a hundred people from getting where they need to go, and return to their seats.
The driver returns, the lights dim, the bus (again) pulls onto the road, I stick my headphones in, the AC comes on and all is well.
3. Wrong Bus Station
Hello again. Did you miss Sarthak? Because he’s about to enter this bus-catching story as well and also simultaneously save my butt from missing yet another ride.
Cue Manali bus stand, round 2. This time I am attempting (key word, attempt) to catch my bus back to Delhi after resting post-trek for a night in the company’s Manali house.
As always, we are there on time even though the bus never is, and I am happily showered, in line for an omelette at a nearby dhaba, waiting for my bus to come and take me back to my nice warm bed in Delhi.
Sarthak goes to again scout out if my bus is here.
I’m starting to become very familiar with his “oh shit” face.
As the man in the dhaba stirs masalas into my soon-to-be omelette, Sarthak comes running over, face urgent, telling me to…
Can you guess yet?
“Run!”
I look at the unsuspecting dhaba man with a pained expression, look back at Sarthak who really isn’t the least bit concerned about my omelette at the moment and fall into a dead sprint…again.
I say sorry over my shoulder as I run away. Next time I’m in Manali, I’m just going to pay him double for one omelette- if he’ll still make one for me.
Without knowing why, I frantically follow Sarthak into a rickshaw, which starts flying down the road, away from the bus stand (parking lot).
“The guy at the ticket counter says your bus is at the other station (parking lot) down the road where the private busses park.”
My bus is a government bus.
Se la vie.
It’s fine, everything is fine, I’m fine.
We fight the massive traffic jam and screech into the station (parking lot), which has essentially turned into one huge mud pit after heavy monsoon rains that week.
Immediately, we literally wave down my huge Volvo bus, punctually leaving at its specified time from a place two miles away from where its online booking system said it would leave from, as it pulls right up to the exit, preparing to turn out onto the road.
I guess the rule is that you can pick one or the other: right time or right place.
I think I might just start walking.
2. First Time to Delhi
What a time. I had just finished volunteer-teaching English at a rural village school in the Himalayan foothills and was heading toward Delhi. This is my first overnight bus in India, and I’m on my way to begin my content writing internship with Bikat Adventures the next day.
The ticketed bus schedule:
Depart Dehradun- 10:00pm
Arrive in Delhi- 7:00am
Guess what happened?
If your guess was none of the above, you’re catching on.
The thing leaves at midnight. Okay fine, whatever, so I had some quality time with the bus station bench.
About four hours into my ride, I check my GPS location on offline Google Maps.
I am close to Delhi, yay!
Wait.
From what I can tell, and the alarming speed at which the driver is operating this motor vehicle, I will reach Delhi, alone, at 4:30am.
I do not know anyone in Delhi yet (this is before my time living there).
I do not have working internet on my phone, just a screenshot of the office address I’m supposed to find.
It is now 4:30am, the bus has parked under a dark, dusty, abandoned overpass in some unspecified section of Delhi (which is a shockingly enormous city), in the middle of the night, in a city I have been told all my life is incredibly dangerous and everyone is getting off.
I get off.
Three men immediately begin following me as I buckle my backpack around my hips.
“Miss, one selfie? Ek pic?”
I speed up, hoping they’ll get the message that following a woman who is alone in a foreign country in the middle of the night is a terrifying experience.
Somehow, that thought was lost on them. Their pursuit and requests continue.
“Nahi! Chele jao!” I yell, which means no and also get lost.
Reluctantly, they disperse.
It is now silent outside, and I walk, scanning every inch that the dim streetlights will let me see out of paranoia.
I’m also looking for somewhere, anywhere that I can safely go inside.
After fifteen uncomfortably tense minutes, I find an unlocked, lit hotel lobby, and I breathe for the first time in what feels like a century.
I enter and ask the man at the reception desk if I can just sit in the lobby until the sun comes up.
He kindly offers me some chai and a refuge for as long as I need it.
For three minutes, my heart rate is slightly normal again.
Then he asks the question I want to hear least, “are you married?”
Shit.
I don’t know why, but I say no. Despite it probably having the potential to stop a very uncomfortable situation right then and there, I should not have to lie just to avoid the inappropriateness of someone else.
He perks up.
I consider leaving, look out the window, groan at the pitch-black sky and sit back in my chair.
It doesn’t feel so comfortable anymore.
I somehow manage to deflect his numerous attempts to get my number, saying I’ll take his instead.
Then he asks the dumbest question I’ve ever heard.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” he starts, as if we are close friends, “will you come to Kashmir with me to visit my parents?”
I am speechless.
“Um fuck no, I literally don’t even know your name,” is what I wanted to say.
But potentially being kidnapped to Kashmir for an involuntary marriage still sounds better at this point than the dark streets that I see every time I turn my head to the left.
Sunrise is in one hour, I tell myself. Just don’t piss him off before then.
“I’ll have to see,” I say instead. “I don’t know what my work schedule will be like here yet, so I will let you know when I find out.”
He wasn’t particularly thrilled by this answer, but it was enough.
After 45 more ridiculously uncomfortable minutes, I leave, trying to hail a rickshaw.
No one will take me to the address in my screenshot. They say it’s too far away.
I don’t know where I am though, or where this place I’m supposed to go is. I can’t figure out either because my phone doesn’t have data and the hotel has no WiFi.
Incredibly reluctantly, I go back inside.
“I can call a taxi?” says the man who has creepishly spent the last two hours attempting to be my husband.
“Sure.” I mutter.
He tells me, after several minutes on the phone, that a taxi to my address will be 500 Rupees.
Which is like $7, but most taxi rides in Delhi never hit over 150 Rupees.
They’re playing with me.
I’m done being the underdog here.
I pick up my bag to literally leave and start walking aimlessly around this endless city, asking for directions, when two men checking out of the hotel overhear my plight and offer to drop me off close to the address since they’re going that direction.
I don’t even care anymore. On my first day in New Delhi, India, I hitchhike with two men who are complete strangers who say that they are going to a golf lesson.
Thank God they were telling the truth. I don’t even say bye to the guy at reception.
I delete his number as I ride away in the back seat of this car.
Some twenty or so “am I getting kidnapped?” minutes later, and these two very nice men stop to let me out and carry on their way.
I’m under an overpass again.
Apparently though this overpass is close to the address. And it’s not the freaking middle of the night.
I am making progress.
I begin walking around, pointing to my screenshot and asking anyone I see, “yeh kaha hai?” (Where is this?)
I am directed back and forth across the highway several times, in which the process of crossing I must dodge many rickshaws, cars very intentionally not in their lanes, busses and a surprising number of cows.
I am not making progress.
I finally wave down a rickshaw driver, point for what I hope is the last time at that address screenshot, and let him start asking people where the heck it is.
We drive around for a while, but somehow this nightmare of the last 12 hours comes to an end at last. I walk through the doors of my new office, am promptly given a latte and told that if I ever am in need of help like that again and don’t call them, I’ll be hearing about it.
“But I didn’t want to wake you up in the middle of the night,” I say to Ritvij and Girish, two of the owners I am meeting for the first time.
They exhale sharply, “I don’t care what time it is or where- you call.”
Suddenly I realize that I am home.
It’s funny writing this particular story now with so much hindsight. I am literally typing this blog, a year later, while in a tent in the Himalayas on a trekking assignment working full-time for this company that has become my second family.
Definitely, undeniably, 100% worth the world’s worst bus ride.
1. Rohtang Pass
Enter Sarthak and I (again, woohoo! Third time is the charm, right?), both freshly off of an exploratory trek as the Recce Team for our trekking company, Bikat Adventures. Basically the idea is to navigate a new trail and decide whether or not it has good potential to open up as a new option for participants in the future.
Essentially, we just hiked an obscene number of kilometers in the last week, chased a lot of goats away that were trying to eat our tent, ate gourmet re-hydrated food and we smell impressively bad.
I make this sound like it was an awful experience, which would give off a totally wrong impression. Truth be told, we freaking love this. There’s something ironically refreshing about being exhausted and covered in dirt- but there’s a time and a place for such things.
And now was the time for hot showers, a stack of Nutella pancakes and a bed not made of semi-frozen mud.
Which meant that we had to catch the bus back from the little village of Sissu where we found ourselves exiting the trail into.
“It comes at 12:00pm,” said the owner of the roadside shop we stationed ourselves at (which really means like 1:00 or 1:30pm).
We had selected this position strategically you see, so that we could easily spot the bus and wave it down. There are no designated bus stops usually in these smaller, rural areas, and so they’ll just keep going unless they see someone who needs a ride.
Or they’ll just keep going anyways.
Our bus, at a remarkably punctual 12:05pm comes flying at hyper speed around the corner of the mountain and into our view. Sarthak and I fly off our butts, waving furiously at this hissing metal blur of momentum that hurls on past us down the mountain road, screeching faintly as it rounds the next corner and disappears.
The only proof it was ever there to begin with is Sarthak’s and my newly windswept hairstyles.
Well crap.
“There’s no more bus today, but I can get you a taxi for 5,000 Rupees,” said some sketchy man leaning over a nearby fence who had apparently been monitoring our situation.
A 5,000 Rupee price tag, by the way, is the equivalent of a plane ticket.
So that was a no.
The owner of the restaurant we had eaten at earlier that day offered us two seats in his brother’s car who was apparently stopping by shortly to drop off some guns for some unspecified purpose. Despite that being one of the weirder things we had heard that day, our desperation level was pretty high, so we decided to go for it.
Only when we saw several shotguns being handed through the driver’s side of a tinted-window car that immediately drove off afterward did we realize that this plan also wouldn’t (and honestly also probably shouldn’t) work.
“We’re gonna have to hitchhike,” I say, unphased at this point, if traveling in this country has taught me anything, it is to seriously go with the flow.
Also to not worry if you forgot to pack snacks for your bus ride, because people will jump onto the bus and sell them to you. Seriously, it’s like the world at your fingertips- magazine salesmen, people who will make chaat and salads for you out of a bucket, water, bananas, sliced coconut, strangely-shaped stretchy toys- you name it, someone will probably enter the bus at some point with it for sale, jumping off when it starts moving again.
But I’m off topic. I march out to the road and begin Mission Hitchhike, waving at every car that drives by.
“Go for it,” says Sarthak, with his patently nonchalant grin.
This goes on unsuccessfully for about five minutes when a familiar sound makes us both perk up like a couple of desperate prairie dogs.
A bus sound.
The sound of a bus.
ANOTHER BUS.
We still aren’t sure why, but another bus is rounding the corner, again at lightning speed- but this time it won’t get away.
We stand in the middle of the road, willing the bus to try and pass us.
I think to myself, “give me the bus, or give me death!”
Okay, so in all honesty, we definitely would have jumped out of the way should the need have arisen, but I think the driver got the message, and away we rode- until we didn’t.
The route we took from Sissu to get to Manali requires us to ride a truly staggering amount of poorly-paved switchbacks up and over Rohtang Pass, which sits roughly at 14,000 feet.
The hilarious excuse for a two-lane highway is normally clogged with tourists, hoping to reach the top by car and play in some snow. Luckily for us (or not), the pass is closed to tourists every Tuesday for road maintenance.
This Tuesday’s agenda, apparently, consisted primarily of blasting a chunk of dynamite so forcefully into the mountainside that a car-sized boulder fell directly into the center of the two lanes, effectively blocking both directions of traffic for four hours.
Hello.
FOUR HOURS.
While a group of men hack the big rock into smaller pieces of rock.
You know when your bus driver gets out and takes the keys that you’re screwed for a while, so Sarthak and I take that as our que to sunbathe our stinky selves on a rock and people-watch for an indefinite amount of time.
Our peace is interrupted after some time by the ignition of engines and the sound of people sprinting- which is always a reassuring combo.
And so is the sight of our bus’ red taillights driving away down the mountain.
Sound familiar?
I am also fairly sure that the sight of us sprinting after it and jumping through the door (remember the upper body strength?) was also excellent people-watching material for someone else.
Of course, the bus makes it about eight feet before it catches up with the post rock-removal traffic jam.
Imagine two fat semi-trucks attempting to drive by each other on a road meant for one compact car. Now put a cliff on one side and a several-hundred-foot drop-off on the other.
We got a nice little mental image for your next nightmare?
Okay good.
So mountain busses have a system for stuff like this in the Himalayas, which basically includes a co-pilot equipped with a whistle.
The basic premise of the system is that co-pilot hangs out the window over the edge of the cliff, and when too much of the outer tire rubber is no longer touching solid ground, blows the whistle- letting the driver know that he can’t pull anymore to his side to allow the other oncoming bus to pass.
Which means no one moves.
Initiate phase two of co-pilot duties. Along with any number of other concerned citizens, co-pilot emerges and tells everyone where they need to back up, pull over, drive forward, levitate- you name it- to get traffic flowing again.
At one point I dared to look out the window of the door on the drop off-facing side of the bus, only to cringe when I realized we were so close to the edge, I couldn’t even see the road when I looked straight down.
I don’t remember when I stopped absentmindedly slicing my nails into the underside of my worn chair out of tension, but let’s just say that I had an escape route planned in case the tires went an inch too far and I needed to jump out a window.
People here make fun of me when I politely demand that someone who speaks Hindi accompany me anytime I am trying to catch the bus.
I feel like it’s a fairly reasonable request, all things considered.
Plus, a little unexpected cardio never hurt anybody.
Ants in My Pants 