Travelling in style…well sort of
Passports at the French Consulate and no idea when they would be returned. A decision was made to catch a bus to Amalapuram as we couldn’t fly as foreigners in India without a passport and no more precious time could be wasted!
Looking at the options, an overnight sleeper looked like the best solution for a 16 hr trip. However, upon confirmation of the booking a limit of 10kg luggage was specified. Not again!!! Obviously the people of India pack light 👀. Not us, with almost 25kg each (which we had prepared for a flight) plus our instruments. I started thinking of ways to lighten the load. I took out a garment washing bag and stuffed in full of clothes (at least 10kg worth) so that it looked like a pillow. I did the same with the hotel washing bag that they provide. I thought I was pretty clever 😏.
On the morning of our departure from our beautiful hotel we thought a second massage was the way to go before a gruelling trip. Aaahhh…pure luxury to last us the next 2 1/2 months. After a late check and a decent chow down at the buffet (because there was no way we were buying street food on the way) we made our way to the coach stop. It was there that a kind eyed stray dog befriended me. Heeding the warning from our travel doctor, who could not give us a rabies shot as there were none in Australia, I did not touch him, but he made himself comfortable next to my bag and stared at me with those big brown eyes. Tony thought he could sense a kind human.
Fun fact - Did you know that there are more stray dogs in India than the human population of Australia?
After waiting some time for the bus, a driver who had pulled up in a small 22 seater approached us and asked us if we are on the bus to Amalapuram. He pointed to board this small bus and I said “no, no we are on a sleeper bus” and he said ‘later’. We understood from this brief exchange that we would be taken to the sleeper coach. Upon boarding this bus we are greeted with this sign…
Luckily my top strength of positivity interpreted this to mean “Don’t be afraid to live…get out an enjoy”
After an hour of peak our traffic we were transferred to our sleeper. The baggage handler looked at me with all of our gear, I smiled and shrugged with a pleading look 💁and realising he couldn’t communicate with us, put everything into the trunk of the bus. Good thing we were first on and last off.
We stretched out, closed the curtain and felt like we were in a world of our own. After hours of watching traffic, traffic and more traffic we fell asleep until…”*^&%&^%$^%$#&^%*R” What? What is he saying? Looking around we realised people were moving about. The conductor came back past our booth and gestured food. Excellent a toilet stop! (and it had real toilets - bonus). Thinking about dinner, Tony and I both opted for some prepackaged muffins, biscuits and a cornetto each. I know, you are all thinking ‘healthy’ but realistically it was. We maintain a pretty strict no street food policy and this decision got us through without getting sick.
Finally, the stops started to become more regular as people disembarked (but no more toilet stops). We arrived in Amalapuram an hour early but the school bus and friendly faces were there to greet us.
Made it! Asked whether we wanted something to eat or head to our accomodation, Tony was prompt in replying that our accomodation would be fine. Aaaaahhhh! Relief.
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