Bus ride Jaipur to Pushkar - March 2010

Getting from Jaipur to Pushkar should have been a lot easier but this is India and you sign up for adventure and pushing the boundaries when you agree to come here. To buy intercity bus tickets in India you can get a rickshaw down to the bus station a couple of days before and you are sorted. Being the internet lover that I am, I decided there must be an easier online way of booking tickets (sometimes bargaining with the rickshaw driver then trying to work out where and how to buy your bus tickets and who to trust is all too much).

So I found one of the few online booking sites here in India that accepts international credit cards - makemytrip.com. The sight is easy to navigate around and even shows you a floor plan of the bus to let you choose which seats you want - wow! I paid my 60 rupee (under $2 for a 3 hr bus ride) for a sleeper on a non-AC bus. Non-AC seems to scare most tourists that I have met here that swear by Deluxe buses only - they charge a special "tourist price" and lump you on a bus with other foreigners so all the touts are waiting when you reach the other end. My non-AC "Indian" bus has huge what I call suicide windows, that as the bus pulls up at a stop (not sign posted of course just a random petrol station) the locals are there selling Pani (water) and pass them up through these windows so as to not slow the bus down with passengers getting off.

My sleeper was a perfect idea, it meant I could take on my painful huge backpack and have it on the end of the sleeper (a single bed) and not have to stress if anyone is in the hold of the bus rifing through my things. So my sleeper was airy with the huge windows and a curtain and sliding door that locks me out from the rest of the bus - I didn't feel the need to shut the door since I had the curtain, I invited trouble didn't I. So about 20 minutes into the trip, I'm dosing off to sleep with my Bollywood tunes on my ipod and I feel someone shove my foot out of the way and then she sits her butt on one of them anyone. I could only assume that she said she needs to sit there until they sort out her seating problem as I could see her husband arguing (or is that just talking in India?) with the conductor. So as I annoyed as I am at her tone with me and her lack of a polite excuse me expression, I decide to let her sit there for a few minutes until things get sorted.

So after about 10min she starts trying to get comfortable and pushing her way back on the seat - and further still onto my feet. I realise sh probably isn't getting off anytime soon so decide my feet will suffer to ensure that she is as uncomfortable as I am in the hope she gives up and finds her seat. I'm trying not to "sweat the small stuff" but for the next hour I can feel myself psyching up to tell her to move or pay half my ticket if she wants the seat - yes little miss principle strikes again. Just as I've worked out what I'm going to say she leaps off and with her husband and they are leaving the bus. Problem solved.

Arriving into Ajmer - which Lonely Planet says is a 13km bus ride away from the main bus station and only 10 rupees. Sounded easy enough right? What they fail to tell you is that not all buses drop you off at the "main bus station" so in my case I was dropped off randomly and am trying to haul my 27kg+ back pack off the bus - struggling down the stairs with about 20 men all screaming for my business so because no-one was either helping more nor moving out of my way, I shoved my backpack towards them - they moved :)

You know sometimes when you are trying to think and people keep talking to you and they won't stop and you have to tell them to be quiet so you can think? Well at that moment whilst I was trying to get my bearings and work out where the bus to Pushkar left that's what I needed - them to be quiet so I could look and think - yeah right! So I walked off like I knew where I was going and like my bag was only 1kg - it was all dirt so I realised I was going to have to use it as a backpack - again easier said than done. They are all crowding around me shouting, I'm saying "no thank you" and squatting with my day pack on the front as I try to gracefull put this damn curse of a backpack on without stepping on my salwar kameez top as I get up AND trying to find the strength in my thighs to get up without tipping backwards and giving these men the satisfaction that this woman is going to need our help. I did it but I felt like I nearly burst an artery in my brain.

There was a dread-locked Canadian with his backpack and guitar also looking for the bus to Pushkar so we agreed to work it out together and I was secretly thinking I have someone who can help with my bag if needed - cheeky cheeky. So everyone is telling us that there is no bus to Ajmer, instead to go with them somewhere?? I ignored them and walked off determined to find a rickshaw that would drive me to obviously another bus stand wherever on earth that was. I kept getting told 200 rupees and I would laugh and walk off - 10 rupees is what Lonely Planet said for the bus 13km away! Finally one agreed to 10 rupees each and we then realised we weren't moving until they filled this rickshaw up with locals - around 8 of us inside and 2 hanging out. The driver kept yelling at me to hold my backpack so he could fit more people - thinking of comforts sake I conveniently didn't understand what he was talking about, 8 people were more than enough. Eventually we pull up in a busy area and the driver points to a small bus and says "Pushkar" as I'm stepping off the bus a guy grabs my backpack and says "you want to go to Pushkar" - clutching my bag strap I ask him how much and which bus as I could see they were all fighting for my business - 20 rupee later and I got him to agree to carry my bag to the bus and across the road we went. The bus was a third of the council/government buses around the world so technically that should comfortably seat 20 people? Ha Ha I stopped counting at 77! They found this spot in the rear extirior of the bus and managed to squeeze my bag in there and it took 3 men to push the door closed on my bag :) and out of no where he pulls out this key the size of an A4 page saying "no worries mandam bag is safe".

It took about 30 min to go the 13km distance through the mountains to Pushkar from Ajmer. i chuckled because at one point through the sharp mountain bends I felt like we were in the Afghan mountains (yes another dream). I knew we were close when I saw my favourite (not) huge Pushkar monkies running a muck on the towns outskirts.

We pulled into a huge dirt carpark - the bus station and piled out the bus. I had read that you can get a guy with a kind of fruit cart to push your bags to your hotel - he found me and offered to push me and my bag for 20 rupees. The fruit seller ladies had a bit of a chuckle looking at this silly foreign woman sitting ontop of this cart with my bag. The guy seriously had chicken legs and sticks for arms, I have no idea how he found the strength to push me the 1km or so to my hotel. We arrived at a huge fortress gate of my hotel in Pushkar.

Next blog... Pushkar