Bus Days

When you are traveling, there are days you spend a lot of hours on the bus; today was one of those days. We journeyed on a brand new concrete multi-lane highway, but since we stopped in every single village along the way, it still took us about nine hours to cover the approximately 200 kms. It was fun cruising down the newly inaguarted expressway with nothing but the occasional motorcycle or goat herd for traffic, but our old bus maxed out at a speed of about 50 kms/hr even under these ideal conditions. The police sat next to me for the trip so they could practice their english. They had problems trying to store their old wooden barelled rifels, and finally tied them to the seat in front of us. Some of the passengers thought I was under custody, but my friends clarifyed the situation. We shared groundnuts (as they call peanuts here), Indian cucmbers (with salt+chili), icecream (they make it with no electricity, just a bucket of cream in a bucket of ice with salt, just like in boyscouts). and all kinds of fried treats. The policeman sitting next to me is getting married in a couple of weeks, and I told him how excited I was for him and how my wife is arriving in a couple of weeks. I really enjoyed observing the Rajastani countryside, with its hills and valleys, and arid landscape interspersed with fertile irrigated lands. I felt sorry for having to leave behind some impressive fortresses, but you can't see everything! The men here where all white except for extremely colorful turbines, and the women wear equally colorful soris. Just before arriving to my destination, the small town of Bundi, the bus overheated. I thought it was game over, but luckily there was a ground pump nearby, so a couple of men jumped off and collected enough water in buckets for our radiator, and we were on our way.
The medival town of Bundi, with its huge palaces and relaxed lanes lined with blue hued homes was a lovely stop. I hiked up to the hilltop to spend the afternoon exploring some of the abandoned mahals (palaces). It was just me and the monkeys, awesome views, and tons of ruins to explore, with lots of towers to climb and underground tunnels. Some more people trickled up in time for an impressive sunset. What a perfect afternoon!