At 6:20 we got on a bus to Ahmedabad. The bus was old, the seats were uncomfortable, and the door wouldn’t even close. So we rode the whole way with the door open. It was cold — a cool night breeze was blowing in through it.
At one of the stops, an Indian couple got on and said that the seats we were sitting in had been reserved for them — they showed us some piece of paper with stamps on it… We were confused, because it was a 6-hour ride to Ahmedabad and there were almost no seats left.
But the couple turned out to be peaceful — they understood that we really didn’t want to give up our seats. So they found two separate seats for themselves. What to do in such cases remained a mystery… The ticket office refused to sell us tickets, and the ones we bought on the bus had no assigned seats.. This is India, madam…
By the time we got to Ahmedabad, we were a little tired. But we had planned to get to Udaipur today, so we immediately went to the ticket office at the bus station to ask about the next bus. Then a little man came up to us and offered to take a comfortable bus. We had already traveled on private company buses — they really are more comfortable (though more expensive). First, each ticket has a seat number; second, the bus itself is more comfortable. We decided that we had already ridden enough on government buses for today, and the price difference was not very big, so we went with the little man to see what he was offering.
He took us to a kiosk — a company office, of which there were many around the bus station. However, it soon turned out that there were no seated places left, only sleeper berths, and those were twice as expensive… We decided to ask other organizers of similar trips about a bus to Udaipur. At one little office, they offered us a ride for 400 rupees per person (a government bus costs 230 rupees), with departure in just an hour (the man called someone and found out that apparently two seats on that bus had just been canceled) — it suited us perfectly, and we agreed. We got on a tuk-tuk at the company’s expense and rushed to the boarding point for the bus. While waiting for the bus, we even managed to eat Indian ice cream.
