Day 6: January 24

Around 8 in the morning we arrived in Indore. The bus dropped us off not far from the railway station. We really wanted to wash up and go to the toilet, so we went to the station — there are definitely toilets there.

We needed to get to the bus station, 5 km from the railway station, in order to somehow make our way from there to our destination — the town of Mandu. We decided to take a tuk-tuk to the bus station. He wanted 100 rupees, but Volchy bargained him down to 50. We sped off in the tuk-tuk, overtaking everyone and almost swaying from side to side. It’s fun riding in tuk-tuks, almost like a roller coaster.

At the bus station they told us there was no direct bus to Mandu (I was prepared for that because the guidebook said the same) and that we first had to go to the town of Dhar, and from there change to a bus to Mandu. We had no choice, so we jumped on the bus to Dhar. The journey was going to be a long one — 60 km! For India, that’s huge!

The road to Dhar turned out to be terrible; about half of it was unpaved, with potholes, so we were shaken mercilessly (we were also sitting in the last row). About two hours later we reached Dhar, where the driver showed us our bus to Mandu, which was about to depart. I barely managed to find a toilet before leaving. While I was walking around the Dhar bus station looking for a toilet, everyone waved at me cheerfully — probably white tourists don’t come there very often!

On the bus I really wanted to sleep. Everyone kept staring at Volchy and me very intently — this really was the Indian backcountry. As we were approaching Mandu, Volchy spotted baobabs. It turned out he had a dream of seeing baobabs, and here it had suddenly come true. At first we didn’t even believe our eyes, but the trees really did look very much like those we had seen in pictures about amazing trees… Later, at the hotel, we read that Mandu is actually famous for its baobab trees!

And so we arrived in Mandu — a village of one street, with a market in the center that also serves as the bus station, an old mosque, and a couple of cafés. We went into the nearest café to eat and recover a little. We hadn’t booked a hotel here because there are very few hotels in Mandu online and they’re all expensive; we hoped to find something on the spot.

The food they served us wasn’t tasty, but at least we got full, and that was something. We walked along the only street and immediately saw three accommodation options. We started with the prettiest one; the hotel was nice, but somehow unfinished, with renovation in full swing in the other rooms, and in the one they showed us the only furniture was a bed and a table. On the plus side, there was a huge window overlooking some green pasture. We liked the room in principle, but decided to check the other options. The next hotel had darker little rooms, and after long negotiations and arguments they weren’t much cheaper, so we decided to stay with the first option.

The bed linen was filthy, covered in stains, some hairs, and dust. We asked for it to be replaced, for clean sheets and pillowcases to be brought. More precisely, Volchy negotiated with the Indian boy, showing him almost a theatrical scene of what needed to be done, because they barely understand English here; after about the fifth attempt the Indian boy finally understood what we wanted from him. Hooray, we have clean bedding, a huge window overlooking green grass, a hot shower — life is getting better!

After the shower we lay down to sleep a little; the journey on three buses had exhausted us.