The Wobble

Sounds a bit like the title of an essay you’d assign to an 8 year old. Hmmmmm, here it goes.
We checked out of the Raj Guru place at about 9 in the morning, after some breakfast we booted on up the road to get the bus to ajmer before catching a connecting bus to bundi. Bundi sounded like the perfect remedy to the pretty rubbish faux hippy scene that exists in pushkar, but more about bundi later.
As we approached the bus stand we could see a small mini bus pull out of the car park. The driver lets down the window and lets a roar that loosely resembled Ajmer so we ran and jumped onto the bus while it was still moving. Everyone on the bus was a local with the exception of one lady who was well into her 50s, we had an argument later on whether she was german or french so for the sakes of diplomacy we will say she was from Luxembourg… There were 2 seats available behind her so thats where we went. She was a rather contrary type and just by the way she spoke about some places I knew that my own opinion would be quite different from hers, it was still interesting enough to listen to her though. Halfways through the journey the bus conductor who was a small weedy type wearing a dirty green sweater, he looked like the only soap he ever saw was on the tv. He makes his way down in our direction and tries to charge us double what he charged everyone else. It was just 20 rupees which is about 35 cents in euroworld so I didn’t really care that much about it. The Luxembourg lady kicked up a bit of a fuss though and refused to pay the extra charge, it seemed like the right thing to do to row in behind her because yer man was basically trying to pull a fast one on us. So we stubbornly refused to pay up the extra charge, even as he sat with his open hand in front of us for a couple of miles we refused to budge on the price. After around 10 minutes of this we arrived at the final stop for this bus, twas about 100 yards down the road from the main bus stand. As I went to get off I grabbed both my bags, the lux lady was having trouble with hers being lodged under her seat and having the conductor hanging off her looking for money. So I put down my black bag carrying my passport, camera, mp3 player, credit cards etc etc on the seat beside hers and gave her a hand to get off the bus… That was the first time that bag was out of my sight on this trip and typically the last I saw off it. I don’t know why I didn’t kop it sooner that it was missing, I guess the stress of getting off the bus, getting hassled by the human weed, negotiating the indian roads, finding the bus to bundi and getting some food for the 5.5 hour journey it was about 5 minutes into the journey while tying up my backpack (now thats irony) that I asked shari if she had seen my black bag.
Think father ted when dougal hits the red button, panic sets in. We immediately got off the bus and hailed a rickshaw back to ajmer bus stand. I immediately went to the police station there – because it was a private bus they had no way of tracking the vehicle – so lesson 1 don’t travel on private buses. It was really frustrating dealing with the police – they just didn’t want to know about it. At this stage I had a fleeting hope that I could recover the bag. They though were too busy sunning themselves to give a shit, they wouldn’t even make a police report from me citing the fact that the bus had originated in pushkar so I would have to travel all the way back there to file a report. Talk about being deflated… So on a bus I jumped back to bloody pushkar. I left shari in ajmer, telling her to book into the recommended hotel there and I would call later to see if the bag turned up there.
So back to Pushkar, I made an immediate beeline to the copshop there. Inside the gate there were two of them sitting in the sun beside a table playing cards, I frantically told them my bag was missing, possibly stolen and if by any chance anyone had handed in a black bag from the return trip as lost n found. One of them, nods and says yes! I couldn’t believe it, I asked him again in the clearest, slowest most deliberate english ever ‘Has a Black Bag been handed in?’ – ‘Yes sir, this way’. In I walked hoping to see the bag sitting plump on the table with a where the feck were you look on it – but no. All I got was the grumpy seargeant who informed me there was no bag only police report possible… This is when india can be really frustrating, its a good job that i am a very patient person. After the report was filled out I went across the road to the bus stand to see if the offending bus had returned. I was accompanied by one of the policemen but I might aswell have been accompanied by the man on the moon. I told him several times to stop looking in the big buses as it was a small bus that we took, but he persevered.
I eventually figured I would be better off without this indian version of inspector clouseau and went over to the bus stands main admin dude. While talking to him a big crowd started to gather around to listen in on my plight, one guy called dillip (dunno how I seem to remember his name) had better English than most and so befriended me. I asked them if the bus had come back, they asked what kind of bus and what the conductor looked like, I told him the full story and he told me to sit tight as all the buses come back to the bus stand eventually, I figured it was worth a couple of hours. Twas during this time that I found out that the hotel recommended to us in ajmer where I was to meet shari again was actually in pushkar so I had no idea whether she would stay there or come back so pretty much I figured I would have to return back there at some stage and trawl through the listed hotels to see if I could find her, not exactly a tantalising proposition.
After a while the human weed returned minus the bus, I immediately offered to ‘reward’ him if my passport was suddenly to appear, but he didn’t bite. There was a twist in the tale though, after dropping us off the bus did a luggage drop for this special group of Hindu worshipers from all around the world who were attending a retreat in an ashram outside of pushkar. The station master figured that my bag might have been dropped there. So off down the road in search of this ashram – halfway down the road I noticed that there was a big crowd coming down the road with me – I counted 27 men, do any of these feckers ever work? I asked myself!!
We got to the ashram to find the place virtually deserted. The worshipers had all gone off for the day in a holy tour, their head guru, this really nice fella from the states told me that he would make an announcement after their ‘mass’ at 7.30 that evening for everyone to go back to their rooms and check whether the luggage was there, if that didn’t work he would go into each room personally and check himself. It was about 3 in the afternoon so I had a long wait ahead of me. To describe this place or at least compare it to something irish – think of a really small version of knock. My presence drew the attention of quite a few old ladies, they were all so lovely and they were almost moved to tears that I would get a bad impression of india because of this. They each took turns in saying little pujas ‘hindu prayers’ around me, it was quite surreal but at that stage I figured I needed all the help I could get. With hindsight I should’ve used this time to better effect as my aussie travel buddy had returned from ajmer with some great stories of her own of police stupidity etc etc and was frantically trying to track me down – but I stayed on there till almost 10 o’clock when I found out that there was no bag to be found anywhere. They did give me a lovely feed though and offered me a place to stay for the night free of charge.. I politely declined. The buses had stopped going to ajmer at that stage so I had to find a place in pushkar so so late. Up and down I walked looking for a free bed and to see if shari was in the town somewhere. I gave up eventually having searched it must have been 30 hotels. I ended up staying in a lovely little Tibetan hotel which had hot water and was a stupidly cheap 2 euros, one of the best rooms I have had so far, to bed I went and slept surprisingly soundly.

It might sound like the biggest disaster that could happen while traveling but it is far from it, I wasn’t hurt or threatened. Most people I met that day were fantastic and couldn’t do enough for me. Ultimately it was my own fault, I’d like to think it was my good nature that screwed me over but it was probably more naevity than anything else. I have travel insurance and this is exactly what I have it for, it will take about a month to replace my passport and an additional week to get another visa. I am here till may anyways to my plans as such are not affected by it. The only thing that upsets me is losing the photos I have taken since udaipur. I will nick some of sharis ones from there onwards so I guess all is not completely lost….

We met up again the following morning and this time we did make it on the bus to bundi all the way…

Pushkar is about 300 kilometres east of jaisalmer which is about 11 hours on one of indias scooby doo buses – we took a sleeper bus which left jaisalmer at 5.30 and was due to arrive in pushkar at about 4 in the morning or so. Tis really a horrible time to arrive anywhere esp as we had no accommodation booked but onwards and upwards. The trip for the most part was pretty uneventful, the seats weren’t exactly conducive to sleeping. I did manage to drop into something resembling a slumber after several hours only to be woken up by the lack of rattling – we had either
a) careered off the road into a gorge and I was on my way to the pearly gates.
b) turned onto a smooth road which stopped the bus from sounding like it was falling apart
or c) had turned up at our destination.
Now option a is unlikely, b is just ridiculous so it must have been c, but a quick glance outside showed that it was not pushkar but the neighbouring town called ajmer. The driver was at this stage running up and down the bus waking up all the intended travellers to pushkar. I kinda kopped on pretty quickly what was going on. I asked the driver (who needless to say hadn’t a word of english) why we were not in pushkar. He starts shouting last stop, last stop. I looked down at my watch and it was 3.30. Pushkar was still 15 kilometres away – not a flat 15 km either as the road between the two towns goes over what the locals called snake mountain so I wasn’t exactly willing to find out why the mountain got its name by foot.
I asked the bus driver why we were not being brought the whole way, that we had paid to go to pushkar not 9/10s of the way to pushkar. He kept shouting , he even tried to grab some peoples bags and take them off the bus. I was having none of this, the first thing I sought out was an indian passenger who spoke good english so he could translate for me. The driver and some of his cohorts were saying that we would have to cross the road and get a 4.30 government bus to pushkar as the private bus was too big to go to there. At this stage the rest of the guys going to pushkar had realised what was happening, there were 7 in total including myself and shari. Some of the fellas were really getting pissed, on the point of violence. It was shocking form on the drivers part, pure laziness more than anything. He was pretty desperate not to drop us all the way, he even offered to pay for our fare on the public bus – I did consider this offer but it was still a load of crap. Then a lightbulb appeared over my head, I grabbed the driver and ran across to the public bus stand to see the ‘mini bus’ that was to bring us the rest of the way. I should’ve seen it coming really – when the station master pointed at the minibus it was just as big if not bigger than the one we had travelled this far on. I pointed to the driver and said quite firmly – ‘ You are dropping us in Fckn Pushkar ‘ he didn’t need a translator for that, so before we knew it we were back on the bus and on the way over snake mountain with phil the hero.

The next issue was accommodation, it was 4.30 by the time we got there. luckily there were a few hardy souls up – a couple were manning a chai stop so all 7 of us ordered a cup of that sweet goodness and nestled around the little campfire set up to ward away the coldness of the desert night. We eventually mustered the energy to find a place – I followed the crowd to a place called raja towers – it was a pretty modest affair and for what we got and what else in the town that was available it was grossly overpriced, but by home standards it cost about the same as the munchies you get when rent out a dvd.

Alot of people rave on about pushkar, a chilled out paradise, a haven for travellers to recharge their batteries. It is a holy town with a ban on all meat products including eggs, no alcohol allowed within the city limits etc etc but it wasn’t because of this that I didn’t warm to the town, as it happens I have had about 5 beers since christmas day (not that I am counting or anything). I think the people the town attracts turned both me and shari off the place – there was an incredible amount of hippies or people there who just wanted to smoke their brains out. The locals have obviously adapted the town to cater for this influx so every hotel has its rooftop opened up for them to sample the local bhang lassi which is a narcotic yoghurt drink which should be illegal but the local cops (more about those lovely men later) seemingly turn a bit of a blind eye to it. The main street in the town more resembles liffey valley shopping centre than an actual religious town that would normally be off any interest – I lost count the number of times we encountered a peace loving hippie argue out really loudly with one of the local shop owners. Despite all these misgivings I had a pretty good time in pushkar. We stayed there for 4 nights plus another night (I will explain in my next entry all about that extra night), we did meet some nice locals like simon – a young lad who works in one of the hotels, he was so funny – he only got paid 2000 rupees a year from his boss from working every weekend. Tried to work it out what he earned on an hourly basis, figured it was bout 15 cents european. We spent most of our time going from rooftop to rooftop talking away about all kinds of everything, if we didn’t get on aswell as we did I’m sure pushkar would’ve lasted 1 maybe 2 nights at maximum.

On the 4th day we got up early, paid our bill and headed for the town they call bundi in south rajasthan. It sounded more like our cup of tea. We grabbed a private bus from just outside the bus stand which would take us to ajmer where we would get a link bus to bundi. It was on the bus to bundi that I noticed that I as down a bag, yes my black carry on bag with my passport, glasses, credit cards, camera, mp3 player – you name it!! All gone… cue what was probably my most interesting day in india yet. Coming soon…….