I awoke the next morning and asked my manager where the bus stand for Jaipur was located.
"You have to take tourist bus, no public bus."
This seemed rather unlikely, but at least I wouldn't have to go far to find a ticket. The first office was sold out of morning tickets to Jaipur, only having a night bus for 600 rupees, exorbitant.
I left and walked for a kilometer down the road, past the main tourist area and saw a sign with cheap prices for tickets. Like the first place, he could only offer a night bus. This was the second time that Jaipur seemed too much of a hassle. Mixed with my extreme negative feelings for Delhi, I figured a swift change in plan was needed.
"Do you have a night bus to Udaipur?"
"We have a bus tonight at five. 800 rupees."
"800 rupees! That's insane!"
"That is the price."
"Is it for a sleeper berth?"
"Yes."
I sat for a moment, weighing my options and decided that 800 rupees was well worth it to leave this city forever. "Fine, I'll take it."
"Would you like a sightseeing tour for the day?"
"Nah, that's ok."
"Only 100 rupees."
"Where does it go?"
"Sightseeing around Delhi."
"Yes, but where?"
"Lotus temple and other places?"
"What other places?" I asked.
"Red fort, parliament, President's house. Indira Ghandi museum. A very good tour. It brings you back here at 4:30 so you can catch the bus."
My attempts to the see the city on my own power had proved fruitless, mostly because of its size. Maybe a tour would help me leave with better feelings. Plus, I really wanted to see the Lotus Temple, which was a convoluted trip by public transport. "Fine." And I gave him the money. "When does it leave?"
"It left hours ago."
I hate this city.
His cronie popped his head in the door. "Ok, come now." He invited me onto the back of his motorbike and we sped off, weaving in and out of traffic as I squeezed his midriff. After a few miles, he pulled up beside a bus that he waved at while speeding through traffic. It pulled over and let me on.
I was one of two foreigners on the bus, but many of the natives were friendly and happy have a gorah to chat with. Our first stop was the beautiful Laksmi temple, followed by the well presented, but uninformative Indira Ghandi Museum. After a stop at the government buildings, it was already one pm, and we had many places and a lunch stop still ahead. I pulled the guide aside, "What time are we getting back to Pahar Ganj?"
"Around 6 o'clock."
"The guy who sold me the tour also sold me a bus ticket and he said we'll be back by 4:30."
"Well, that's stupid."
I wasn't sure if he was taking about what the travel office said or my purchase of this tour.
"So, at what point can I catch a subway back in time."
"After lunch, we go to Qutb Minar. You can get back from there."
The next stop was a handcrafts shop, followed by lunch. The restaurant was overpriced, so I wandered around to find some of the ubiquitous street food. A nearby street vendor was selling a delicious looking treat. He took fried potato balls, mushed them up, then poured curry and a couple of hot sauces on top.
"Nameste! I'll have what they're having." I said pointing to the couple of Indian who'd just gotten food.
The man took the potato balls, covered them in curry, then ruined the whole mess with with half a cup of ketchup.
"40 rupees!" He said, handing me the disgusting looking slop.
"Hey man, glad you have such fair prices here." I'd paid twice as much as those in front of me. After two bites of what may have been the worst food I'd eaten in my entire time in India, I threw the mess on the ground with all the other garbage, urine, and fecal matter, then walked away seething.
The next stop, Qutb Minar, I had no time to see. I didn't even see the Lotus Temple, the whole reason I booked the tour. I caught a bus to Connaught Place and power walked the mile to the tourist office, working out all the angry things I planned to spew at the shifty travel agent
"How was the tour?" He asked with a smile when I entered.
It's hard to tear into a man when he greets you with a smile. "It was good until I found out that it ended an hour after my bus leaves and I had to pay for my transportation back to this part of town and walk two kilometers to get here in time."
"Oh, ok." Not seeming phased by his ridiculous business practices. "I'll have a rickshaw to take you to your bus in a moment. I waited for thirty minutes, making small talk, trying to keep my cool, until the rickshaw came. I was busting with so much buried anger, I feared for its inevitable recipient.
The driver took me to Old Delhi, where we were stuck in traffic for 20 minutes. He took a right, passed a line of nearly twenty people, squatting in a long line, partaking in the old Delhi tradition of tandem defecation right on the sidewalk, only meters from a public toilet. He stopped at an office, beckoned me to come.
The office then told me to go someplace else, back the way we'd just come to catch my bus. I was already late. Thankfully, there was another bus. When I arrived, I was stuck with the 100 rupee rickshaw bill for being carted all over town for apparently no reason. Despite my demanding that he get the money from the agent, the bus company ordered me to pay him.
I entered the bus to realize that I had a seat, not a sleeper as promised.
"Fuck this city!" I began yelling to nobody in particular. "They think cause I'm white that I'm rich and try to rip me off!"
"It's not just you." An Indian man from Mumbai said. "this city, they do it to Indian too. This is the most dishonest town in the world. Everyone cheating. I'm so sad that Delhi is in India, because people leaving hating this country, just from one bad town."
I was feeling the same. When I'd come to Delhi, I was enjoying India for the most part. It was busy and intense and the people were in your face. I was living with a constant state of diarrhea. But there were so many nice people, great food and it was hard not to get swept in the history that stretched back thousands of years. But Delhi. Delhi was taint of the world, tainting my whole trip. Making me hate this country.
The man was stirring in his anger too, "I was supposed to get a sleeper. I pay extra for a sleeper. Now I'm here in a seat."
"Me too!" I exclaimed.
"Me too!" another overhearing us said.
One by one, the people filed onto the bus, looking along the line of sleepers, only to find, disappointed that they had seats. Finally, an African man cracked. He stood up. "This is lunacy. They are screwing us all. I am calling the police."
He dialed while still standing and made sure everyone on the bus could hear his conversation. "You need to come now. There is cheating and bad things on this bus. Ashok Travel. This is no good. They are no good. They stealing money and cheating. You come and seize this bus right now!"
Right after he started the call, the bus sped off.
"Now they move!" the man said. "You must come and stop this bus!"
Others stood up and formed a circle around him to protect him from the ticket collector who was becoming increasingly angry.
"There is much bad things with this company. They steal our money!" He yelled out to us on the bus. "Who is Indian? Who can read signs?"
He stayed on the line, while some Indians yelled our position from the road signs we'd passed.
I turned to the Mumbai man. "Oh god, if they seized this bus, then I'm stuck in this shithole another day!"
"I know, but we have to do something," he replied, "or this will continue for others. Our pain can maybe save pain for others." I was on the bus with a modern-day Gandhi.
Suddenly, he stood up too and recruited others. "This cannot stand! These people are bad, bad people. They are stealing our money. They are cheating!" Suddenly, there was a mass of angry passengers in the aisles. The ticket collector yelled to the driver and headed for the door, clearly ready to jump out of the moving bus.
The crowd grabbed him and started yelling at him in Hindi. At the same time, others tried to pull the driver out of his seat while he was driving. The bus began swerving. I was not in the mob. I stayed in my seat with my safety belt, hoping none of the rickshaw drivers or others who shared the road with us would get killed.
Finally, the bus pulled over and the two employees were dragged off the bus by the mob of angry customers and I didn't see what they did to them while at the mercy of the rabble. Within minutes, the police arrived and broke up the uprising. They all filed a mass complaint against the company and half left, demanding refunds. I remained in my seat the whole time, praying that I'd be able to this horrible town.
Thankfully, the bus did leave, five hours later.
I slept my best sleep in days on that bus seat, because I knew that when I woke up, I'd no longer be in Delhi. I woke up at times when the road got too bumpy. There were times I looked out the window to see we weren't even on a road, but driving through what seemed to be fields, but I didn't care where I ended up. Anywhere was better than where I'd come from.
It became light and I woke up, staring out the window as the landscape became a bit hillier, the highway twisting and turning along small, idyllic lakes with dessert beyond. I saw a with English script saying we were nearing Udaipur. I began to breath easy. This terrible chapter of my trip was coming to a close.
Thirty minutes from our destination, screaming brakes grabbed all of our attention just for us to see our bus smash head on into a jeep that was passing around a curve.
It was no contest: the jeep bounced right off of us. I chose not to watch as they pulled the bloody, dying women from the wreckage. Instead, I sat at the shores of a nearby lake and shared a beedie with the man from Mumbai, who'd oddly enough stayed on the bus after he'd started the uprising to stop it. He was as eager as I was to just leave. We smoked looking over the horizon to the open world before us, doing our best to ignore the poison that lay just behind us, glad we had finally found at least a moment of peace.
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