First trip to India, January 2015

Day 11 - January 19

Udaipur-Ahmedabad train

First trip to India, January 2015

Itinerary

It’s amazing how yesterday’s events seem so distant. That’s always how it is when traveling, probably because so much is happening all the time.

We got up early, just as it was getting light.

We quickly got ready and, after persuading a tuk-tuk to take us to the bus stop for 60 rupees, rushed toward our goal. We needed to find a bus to Ahmedabad. We bought our bus ticket in advance on the redbus.in website. Probably, we did that for nothing.

In Ukraine I was a little frightened of Indian buses, but now I understand there’s nothing scary about them. The man at the bus station window said they don’t have buses like that here, that it’s a private company organizing the trip.

On our printout it said the bus should be standing opposite such-and-such hotel, so we headed there; it wasn’t far. And that’s how it turned out — there was the company office, the trip organizer, and the guys said the bus leaves from here. We arrived a bit too early; the bus wasn’t leaving for another hour. Slums were all around… People were slowly coming out of their shelters and lighting fires; it was cold. We found cheap tea and had two cups each. At the appointed time we set off for Ahmedabad. To our surprise, there were many people traveling with us. Strange why Indians themselves don’t use government buses.

We arrived in Ahmedabad at one in the afternoon, and at 10 p.m. we had a train to Junagadh. They dropped us off somewhere on the outskirts of the city, though there was a Domino’s Pizza nearby. We decided to go in and recover a bit. We chose the cheapest pizza on the menu, Margherita, and it still turned out to be ridiculously expensive by Indian standards. The pizza cost us 270 rupees (70 UAH) for a small pizza, though it was quite tasty. We ate and decided to go for a walk. I read in Lonely Planet that there is a beautiful mosque and a fort and a lake here.

We had plenty of time, but now at least we had some purpose — to see the sights. The fort was not that far away, only 2 km. But it took us more than an hour to walk there! And not because we were moving slowly, no. It’s just that, as I already wrote, it’s very difficult to get around in India. And in Ahmedabad, even more so. A terrible city, better not to come here. My head was splitting from the noise. People, tuk-tuks, motorcycles — everything was moving along the roadway in a jumble. With great difficulty, we made it to the fort, which turned out to be closed off by a gate, and nearby people had set up yet another bazaar — selling bracelets, clothes, cookies, and some incomprehensible liquid in glass bottles.

There was only a little way left to the mosque that Lonely Planet had recommended, and we were pushing our way through a crowd of Indians. We almost missed the entrance to the mosque — it was lost among the stalls. We took off our shoes and, as if diving underwater, the street noise was cut off and we sank into a soothing silence. The mosque was a large square space — empty and clean, surrounded along the perimeter by columns supporting the domes. On one side was the entrance to the mosque itself, where at the appointed time men hurried to pray. In the center was a pool of water, where men washed their feet, washed their faces, and brushed their teeth. There was also a red box there, into which the muezzin spoke, and his speech was broadcast through all the loudspeakers. We sat down by a column and rested from the bustle and noise. It was good and peaceful. It felt so nice just to sit and go nowhere, not hear honking, not jostle through crowds. We spent more than an hour in the mosque. We went to look at the beautiful carved entrance to the mosque. Around six the sun sank below the horizon and we went on, toward the station. We walked slowly; as usual, the street was a bazaar. It was a little easier to walk here. In places there was a sidewalk for pedestrians. Almost at the station itself, Volchiy suggested stopping by a little restaurant. The restaurant was on the first floor of a hotel and turned out to be a very nice place with moderate prices. We had dinner there with delicious food — flatbreads, a spinach dish, palak paneer, and a vegetable mix.

Surprisingly, our train departed on time. As soon as we got on, we lay down to sleep. We were unlucky with our seats. We had an upper berth in the farthest compartment near the exit, and there was a strong draft coming from the ceiling there. I asked Volchy to sleep there because I was cold. So I moved to Volchy’s place — the lower side berth. The journey wasn’t long; we were due to arrive at 4 a.m….