A 27-hour Journey
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2006
1
46
57
Trip End
Feb 13, 2007
Khajuraho, India
Thursday, January 11, 2007
There is no direct way to go from Udaipur to Khajuraho. The ticket man at Udaipur railway station suggested us to take a night train to Mathura, and then "there will be too many buses from Mathura to Jhansi!". From Jhansi we can take direct bus to Khajuraho. So we bought the train tickets.
(1) Udaipur -> Mathura, 610km, 10 hours
It was a night train. We shared the cubicle with an Indian family: a couple with their three young children. The younges one kept crying for hours before she finally fell asleep around 11pm. I tried everything from mediation to prayer, nothing worked. I was almost crying as well in the end. The only comfort was to think that is was still better than being in the neighboring cubicle, in which a man was travelling with a rife and another in handcuffs! We kind of hoped the train would be late, as they usually are, so we could sleep a bit longer. However, it arrived Mathura on time. At 4:30am, we stumbled off the train.
(2) Mathura -> Agra, 50km, 1.5 hours
The ticket man at Mathura railway station told us that there were no direct bus to Jhansi, and that the first train (to Jhansi) would be at 7:30am. Mathura was not a big station. There was nowhere to sit except on the already crowded floor of the ticket hall. And it was very cold. Waiting 3 hours in dark here?? No way, we thought. We hired a rickshaw to the bus station and met a bus to Agra halfway. We hopped off the rickshaw, jumped onto the bus, which took us back to the railway station, waited there for 15 minutes before it finally set off for Agra. Good! We thought. At least we are moving towards the right direction instead of just waiting at the railway station!
At some point, the bus stopped on the highway. The ticket man got off to get two bottles of water, then disappeared together with the driver. Bewildered, we asked other passengers if something went wrong with the bus. "Ney ney," they laughed,"Toilet!" Acha! Of course! We look for toilet paper when nature calls, while both Indians and Nepalis reach for a pitch of water!:)
(3) Agra-> Gwalior, ~100km, 3.5 hours
It was 6:30am when we arrived at Agra bus stand. There was a direct bus to Khajuraho, leaving at 8am. We didn't want to wait. We felt like keep moving. So we got on a bus to Gwalior instead. The ticket man quoted 3.5 hours, which sounded a bit too conservative for the 100km. So we had confidence that we would get there earlier than 10am.
But we didn't take into consideration that the driver was a novice. We narrowly missed running into a big truck, then soon after he managed to screw up the engine. So we stopped on the highway and a dozen of passengers swarmed off to watch them fixing the bus in the middle of the road. The driver was temporarily fired after this incident. Someone else (the ticketman??) took over and drove instead for a while.
Due to the delay, we arrived in Gwalior at 10am, sharp. Three and a half hours! It was amazing. How did they know??
(4) Gwalior-> Jhansi, ~100km, 3 hours
It was in Gwalior where we messed up.
Instead of getting immediately onto the bus for Jhansi at 10am, we decided that it was time for a brunch break. We felt that we needed a good meal before we could handle the rest of the journey. So we went for a thali before coming back to the bus station for the 11:30am direct tourist bus to Khajuraho (which was exactly the same one leaving from Agra at 8am, the one we didn't want to wait for!).
But the bus didn't show up. We paced up and down in anxiety, with our big backpacks. Our behavior attracted attention from dozens of curious Indian men, who volunteered to offer their help, or simply wanted to have a chat. They gave us dozens of different answers about which platform the bus would arrive, and suggestions about what we should do. At 11:50am, we went for the fourth time to the enquiry window. We were told that the bus had an accident and wouldn't arrive at all that day. Our only choice was to take a bus to Jhansi at 12:30pm and arrive at 3:30pm.
If we had waited for the 7:30am train from Mathura, we would have already been in Jhansi by noon.
Frustrated, we boarded the 12:30pm bus. I dozed off in the scorching sun and missed whatever fun there might have been on this bus. But anyway, it did arrive at Jhansi on time.
(5) Jhansi-> Khajuraho, 173km, 5.5 hours
The Jhansi bus station was a big dizzying chaos. Only by miracle did we discover that there was a direct bus, the last one of the day, going to Khajuraho. And guess what, it leaves at 3:30pm, just in time!! We rushed onto the bus and even managed to secure two seats. (Most likely, the ticket-man charged us twice the price and convinced some other passengers to give up their seats...) The seats were next to the door, so we were frozen half of the time. But at least we were sitting! The bus was very crowded. The ticket-man was still trying to stuff in more people, whether they want to go to Khajuraho or not.
I dozed off again. Next time I opened my eyes, the bus had successfully packed in twice as many passengers as before. There was barely space for breathing. A village woman was hanging on the door, with a baby in her arms. I offered to hold the baby on my laps. The woman disappeared soon after I took over her baby, swallowed by the crowd. It was a really nice kid. She didn't cry and didn't complain no matter how I was holding her. With an almost yogic indifference, she just quietly chewed her bisquit, then fell asleep peacefully. But I was not sleepy any more. I stayed fully alert and all my muscles went stiff for the next hour until the mother reappeared and fought her way off the bus.
The bus remained overpacked for the rest of the trip. But surprisingly nobody complained, quarrelled, or even looked annoyed. Everybody just endured as if that is how things should be, making the intolerable trip a bit more tolerable.
We finally arrived in Khajuraho at 9pm, after 27 hours of continual travelling. Totally worn out!
