GPS failure on Mumbai’s busiest motorway

Picture the scene. Two meek and mild western folk need to take a bus from an unfamiliar suburb (Santacruz) of one of India’s busiest cities and are given simply a landmark and the name of a bridge to find the boarding point. Plus it’s rush hour. What could possibly go wrong?

First lesson learnt. If, particularly on the phone, an indian person doesn’t understand you they will just agree with what you are saying, even if it’s wrong. That’s how we found ourselves waiting in the wrong place BEHIND the Reliance Energy Building in Santacruz east. It did seem like an odd place to board a bus but then again, 4 security guards and their dogs had all taken a look at our ticket and after much head waggling pronounced that ‘yes, you can board the bus here’. We were actually supposed to be on the other side of that building on the hard shoulder (imagine waiting for a bus under the Westway in London and you get the idea). After several panicked and indecipherable phone calls to (who we thought was) the driver trying to direct us to the right spot on an unfamiliar motorway where the bus, already full of passengers from Mumbai central with a tight schedule to keep, was waiting, we had two options. Start crying or send out an SOS. Suddenly, from out of the smog and diesel fumes our mystery guardian angel (Reliance Energy staffer) appeared and intercepted the phone call, while simultaneously hailing a rickshaw to take us on to the next stop.

Just in time we reached the next stop and were greeted by a fleet of indian bus staff and passengers cheering us on to board the bus. Turns out the guy we’d been speaking to was in fact a passenger who was just trying to help! Sheepishly we boarded the bus…What a great start to a 15 hour overnight bus journey.

neck brace? what neck brace?





Next, imagine being concealed in a coffin being thrown down a flight of stairs repeatedly for 15 hours. Then imagine underneath our bunks 5 of the grannies from the Kumars at No. somethingorother show who wouldn’t stop talking/cackling/producing pungent smelling foodstuff’s from plastic bags long into the night.  Were they perhaps on some kind of hindu hen do? To make matters worse after paying top dollar for a ‘luxury AC’ bus tickets in desperation after our train tickets failed to make it off the waiting list, Andy’s vent was stuck on permanent full-blast mode right over his head rendering a blast of artic air, akin to the ‘cool shot’ mode on a hairdryer, onto him all through the night. Bleary eyed, a little stiff and with mouth’s drier than Gandi’s flip flop,  really, we reached Udaipur city 15 minutes early at 9.45am.