If you've been following my blog so far, you'd know that I've been having a pretty wild time with road safety in India. If you haven't been following my blog so far, well, you should. Here, I'll make it easy for you:
India is famous for its train service. It's slow, and it smells bad, but it's reliable, charming, and most of all, it's incredibly cheap. Because of its cost-effectiveness, trains generally tend to book out several days in advance. So plan B is a sleeper bus.
Sleeper buses suck.
Sure, the idea sounds nice on paper, right? You get on the bus, go to sleep, and wake up at your destination in the morning, well rested and ready to go about your day.
Hahahahahaha. No.
Getting a sleeper bus in India is a fucking ordeal.
The first problem is finding the bus, because no-one tells you that rather vital piece of information when booking your ticket. I spend two hours wandering around Panjim bus station looking for a bus, any bus, that says Fernandes Travels, which is the name of the operator that I've booked with from Goa to Mumbai. After showing my confirmation text message to about a dozen people, someone finally tells me that the bus journey is, in fact, operated by Naik Travels. Nice one.
Panjim Bus Station.
After a stressful afternoon, I find my bus just moments before it's due to leave, but the frustrations don't end there.
First of all, the sleeping berth is tiny; I'm 175cm, which isn't all that tall, but I manage to fill the entire recess, which I am also sharing with backpack and my US size 13 shoes. There's not enough room to sit up fully, so I have no choice but to lie down for the entire journey, and there's no toilet, which is fun when your digestive system is still adjusting to unknown bacteria. (That's a polite way of saying that I've had traveller's diarrhea since I left Hampi, and I've gotta try to hold that in for 14 hours.) If you're in a top bunk, bad luck. You aren't getting any sleep, because there's nothing holding you in, so you need to hold on when the bus goes around corners. And the suspension wallows like no-one's business.
Which brings me to my next gripe: it's fucking terrifying. India's roads aren't great; the highways are narrow, twisty, undulating and poorly surfaced. And the drivers are all a little bit crazy and selfish. The bus has an atrocious centre of gravity, with half the passengers lying up near the roof. Our driver has a horrible tendency to stomp on the brake pedal, and he also rides the brakes through corners, which are both excellent methods of exceeding the grip limits of tyres – something that you would kind of expect someone who drives for a living to know! Oh yeah, and it's fucking monsoon season so the roads are soaked! Not to mention, you're lying down, with nothing to brace against, so if anything does happen, you're screwed. As I said - terrifying.
This is a luxurious version – the ones in India don't look like this. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.)
Whether due to chance, serendipity, or divine intervention, we somehow survive the night, winding through the wet, twisty, dangerous highway. We've reached the nice, wide, flat, 8-lane motorway into Mumbai. It should be smooth sailing from here, right? Well...
At about 7.30am, some genius in a lorry speeds up alongside the bus and cuts in front. We rear end the lorry, obliterating the bus' windscreen. At this exact moment, everything goes into slow motion. There's a theory behind this; apparently in the face of imminent danger, the resultant adrenaline surge causes a spike in brain activity, we start to process information more quickly, and therefore everything appears to be happening in slow motion. Or something.
The driver slams on the brakes for no good reason whatsoever. The lorry has already sped off up the motorway. The crash should be over and done with, but we've already established that the driver has zero concept of smoothness or mechanical sympathy. The brakes lock up. We begin sliding on the wet, greasy road. Drifting towards the concrete guardrail.
I just wait. Wait for something to hit us from behind and finish the job. Wait for the bus to flip and for everyone to be tossed from their shitty sleeper pods. Wait to die, pretty much. Time has almost stopped altogether.
Nothing hits us. We crunch sideways into the guardrail; thankfully at a low enough speed that the bus doesn't tip over. Now what? Nothing, apparently. Everyone piles off the bus, luggage in hand, and stands there on the side of the motorway in the rain. All of the other passengers seem to know what they're doing and where they're going. I don't.
I'd like to say that this is a photo of a once-glorious bus, but it was never glorious. Also, if you look closely, you'll see that just behind the bus is another bus that has suffered the same fate. Brilliant.
So, stranded 40km from central Mumbai, on the side of an 8 lane motorway, in torrential rain, I do something incredibly stupid. I hail a rickshaw. Because 3 wheels on a slippery motorway with trucks and buses flying past on both sides seems like a fantastic idea. The rickshaw is bouncing and hydroplaning all over the place. I am absolutely white-knuckling. This is the end for sure, I'm thinking. My heart is in my throat.
Nope. I'm still alive. We make it as far as the boundary between the city and the suburbs, and the rickshaw is allowed to go no further. The driver bundles me out and into a taxi. I tell the cabbie to take me to Leopold's, a famous cafe in Mumbai's city centre. I figure it's a safe, foreigner friendly place while I figure out my next move. Also, I really, really need to use the bathroom.
The world's worst bus ride costs me 800 rupees, plus I spend another 500 on taxis. The train would have cost me 500 rupees and dropped me right in the heart of Mumbai with a minimum of hassle. I note this for next time.
yes, I think this story is recognizable for every traveler/backpacker...
Been on some horrible bus rides too but luckily accident free. Altough I came close ones in Thailand when our minivan went trough red and trough the traffic of a busy cross point because the brakes snapped.
Oh that would have been terrifying! I'm glad you came out unscathed and lived to tell the story.
I'm just grateful that the crash happened on a motorway and not up in the hills during the night. I may not have been so lucky then.
Wow, I just found your post on the trending page, so you have finally gotten that well deserved curie vote, congratulations!
Curie and a whale! Feeling very grateful - I probably had enough money left to last me a month before I made this post. I might be able to spend more time in Cuba now!
The whale (hendrikdegrote) is one of the most powerful Steemians and is actually tailing the curie upvote tail together with some other powerful accounts I think ;)
You should be able to see a lot of Cuba with the money from this post since in US-Dollars the payout is around 500$ which is a little more than I spent in 26 days in Cuba!
At the moment, that money is locked into other interests, as I will be setting up somewhere in Eastern Europe in February to teach English, so it will be put towards life expenses. But another 1 or 2 of these in the next 5 weeks before I leave Mexico will really allow me to breathe easier.
Well, don't count on it, getting a 2nd curie upvote for the same theme of posts is quite hard I think.. Now that you have earned some Steem, you should really think of spending 2 Steem to join @qurator to get you some regular daily upvotes!
So you dare to come to Europe in cold winter? I wish I was in Mexico right now, it's too cold, rainy and windy here.. But teaching English in Eastern Europe sounds like a super interesting experience, good luck!
Ah, I see. Oh well, I appreciate the spike in followers and extra exposure that this has given me. I actually joined @qurator on the same day that I made this post.
Yeah I'm not looking forward to the European winter, I only just escaped it a month ago, but it's for a girl.
Well, that seems like a good reason to come back to the European winter ;)
Great account! I love India (2 and a half years there), but never travelled on the buses, always the trains. Oh, except for one hair-raising bus ride up to Dharamsala. Good to know I wasn't missing out. Although it must have been scary your account made me laugh - I can just imagine the journey. And you're not kidding about rickshaw rides on wet highways, your description of the white knuckles brought it all back. Will follow to read more!
Thanks for reading! Next up is a story about a day spent on a Bollywood set with Salman Khan. Digging deep for this one, since it was 6 months ago and I haven't written about it on Facebook or anything so I've got nothing to refer to, but part 1 should be up tomorrow.
I only spent 6 weeks in India. It was fun, but difficult. Mumbai was definitely my favourite of the big cities. After India I went to Pakistan which was really, seriously life-changing. So I've got plenty of great stories to come!
I think living and working in India is very different from travelling continuously - I would generally head out of Delhi for the weekend on sleeper trains for the most part. Explored a lot of north India that way. But having a stable base to go back to makes a huge difference.
I'm a closet Bollywood movie fan, so looking forward to getting the behind the scenes story :) Plus hearing about what sounds like an amazing time in Pakistan.
Have you seen Tiger Zinda Hai? That's the movie. I haven't seen it yet so I'm not sure if my scenes made the cut.
I haven't no, but having looked it up it actually looks quite good. Not your typical Bollywood. Will have to try to catch it.
That is epic dude... engaging reading :)
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Exciting story. Glad no one was injured! And a long bus ride with diarrhea -- not fun!
I never had the misfortune of a bus crash during my own travels, but I rode enough buses that it never surprises me to hear of one. The drivers were crazy enough in Southeast Asia, and from what I've heard India is worse!
The drivers are absolute maniacs in India. Often drunk or stoned. I've always maintained that India is the most dangerous country I've been to. People usually think it would be Pakistan or Iraq, but wars and insurgencies don't really affect the day-to-day life of civilians very much. Road safety and terrible food hygiene are much bigger problems, and for that reason India is a pretty dangerous country for a traveller.
Great post! I myself had an accident not 3 years ago and that part you just mentioned where evrything turns into slow motion, ive also experienced that. Glad you're okay and survived unscathed. Thanks for sharing! 😀
The slow motion thing is kind of thrilling, I'm not gonna lie!
Where was your accident?
Here in our place. I ran a guy over, i thought i killed him. I actually made a post about it a few days ago hehe. There's actually a scientific explanation about that slowmo thing. I thought that only exists in the movies. I was wrong. haha
Buses and autorickshaw's are equally scary here in India. In the Northern most state Jammu, even private car owners drive as if they all are participating in the death race.
I love your country, so fascinating and diverse. But the attitudes of drivers who had no regard for the lives of their passengers really pissed me off.
I hope you will follow my blog! I have some great stories about India coming up, including spending a day on a Bollywood set and staying at the Golden Temple.
Absolutely I will :)
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Oh god, tell me about buses in India :O. Scary indeed. We are very privileged with all the road safety and all. I had a similar experience with trying to find the bus in New Delhi when I was travelling to Dharamshala. I had a pre-booked ticket which meant nothing. The time on it also meant nothing, haha - eventually someone just told me to get on a bus - I obeyed. And then the next 8 hrs of that journey where so scary. Going up the mountain on those narrow roads with a 20m drop wasn't fun at all. Glad I survived. I am also glad you survived as well. :)
Bus crashes are an incredibly common cause of death in India, so it's definitely a huge relief to be able to tell the tale. Travelling on the train is definitely preferable, although it can be difficult to get a spot sometimes!
Yes, a crash is a completely different story for sure. Yes, I booked my train ticket weeks in advance and it took a few weeks to register on their online service (which also took them a few weeks to respond to). But the train rides are definitely more fun and safe. :)