jaisalmer - jodhpur

Trying to get ANYWHERE in India is a matter of patience, patience and having a very stretchy bladder. A bus that is supposed to take 5 hours, with a rest/toilet break, is actually a 7 hour journey with no stops unless you're lucky and the bus gets a flat tire. It is often a choice of either not drinking any water, and risk getting dehydrated in the stifling heat, or quench your thirst, and risk a ruptured bladder. Essentially something between a rock and a hard place.

Brina and I travelled from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur today on the "tourist deluxe"- bus, thinking that that way we would a) leave on time, b) arrive on time; c) be able to pee during the journey. We were wrong, but oh so wrong. The "tourist deluxe" bus is in fact a slightly better quality bus with both seats and sleeper sections, but this doesn't really mean much in India: if the bus has 30 seats, then you have 45 people sitting and another 60 standing in the aisle.


We were the only foreigners on the bus, which seemed to amuse the rest of the, mostly male, company. They were staring at our faces, at our books, at our bags, and then repeating the procedure all over again. And I never thought that watching a white girl applying suncream on her face could be that fascinating, but apparently it is.