Long first day in India

I arrived to Bangalore airport around 5 in the morning and had no problems with the luggage; still inside the airport I exchanged money and got my first Rupees (indian currency) to pay in an office for a pre-paid taxi to the bus stand.

It was still dark when I went outside and many people started to shout to me: taxi, taxi, ricksaw, ricksaw... I explained them that I was looking for a pre-paid taxi and showed the paper I got from the taxi office...one guy told me:"follow me"...and I...followed him...with all my luggage, that of course was not so light...

Reaching the taxi was a kind of adventure itself...was a kind of white van parked with other 20 more...and some of them had to be moved before we could approximate to it ... it took like half an hour to arrive to the KSRTC bus counter...was before the sunrise and the station was still quite sleepy but of course already crowded, but the nice taxi-driver- "first guardian angel of the day"- went to try to get some information about my tickets while let me waiting near the taxi...after what looked for me like one week, he came back and told me that my bus to Manipal was leaving at 7:00 am but the ticket counter didn't open until 6:00 am so I should wait...and so I did!

When I decided that should be the time, I started to ask for the bus to Manipal, but people or didn't know that place or didn't understand my way of saying it...after going one way the whole platform and coming back trying to read the signals, checking all the ticket counters that were closed and asking randomly to everyone that seemed to me that maybe could understand me...I got to know that there was no bus to Manipal till 12 in the noon...it was still around 6 in the morning...I had being travelling for so many hours that for sure I was gonna fall asleep in this crowded station, but everyone's attention was over me and my luggage...they looked at both as if they were looking to an ET..so I continued trying to figure out any other solution..It was nothing to do with that I felt unsafe or something related to that, was more with their extremely high curiosity and also that I was quite tired and didn’t want to be waiting for 6 hours more there...

One conductor (bus-driver assistant) told me "at 7:00 am this bus goes to Udupi, near Manipal ", and something about 15/50 kms away (because in whole India they use the same word for 14/40 , 15/50 and so on...it's something in between fifty and fifteen but there is no way to guess which one each time!) anyway I decided to take it because wherever that Udupi was located it seemed that much closer from Manipal than Bangalore, and this bus left in less than one hour.

I asked for the price and the duration of the journey, the answer was: something around 300 Rs (6€) and...10 hours!! so what to do?? I asked him if I can go inside the bus in that moment, paid him the ticket, he gave me back a piece of paper cut with his hands and something indecipherable hand-written with a pen...took my luggage inside the completely empty bus ...

The bus was a “regular one”, of course not sleeper not even reclining seats, not even comfortable at all…so the perspective of spending the next 10 hours there was not my ideal but was so tired that I fell asleep immediately.

After a while people started to come inside the bus and seemed so difficult for everyone to find the right seat that I was wondering if this was such a big deal...the conductor moved a woman and told me to move to her place, then a man was complaining to me that this was his seat...at the end of the 10 hours journey was when I finally understood that the conductor was just taking care of me and wanted to sit me near a 'mam that would take care of me the whole way...but this I just realized with details in the route, so kind of him! -"second guardian angel of the day"-

Here everyone calls me 'MAM - comes from Madam- that sounds quite funny to me.

Mostly I was sleeping, despite of the roads, the worst I had ever tried, and the indian way of driving...they are horning each second, and the way they overtake the other vehicles is…just crazy...that deserves another post, and the non-reclining bus and the trolley under my legs and my bag over them, and trying to take a look of my big suitcase that was in the middle of the corridor with people standing there because were more people than seats ( the most common thing in India), and all these times that the bus stopped to take some more passengers or to leave them or the 2 needed stops for snacks and toilet...when everybody except for me left the bus for around 20 min and I had to stand up to let the 'mam going out...

The last stop I also didn’t wanted to go down but between the 'mam and the conductor convinced me…so I went to the toilet (2 Rs)...I just thanked God for not having have any meal or drink after leaving the plane because i had forgotten about the toilets - Turkey, Jordan and Thailand has the same toilet system but memory is weak - is not that in Spain public toilets are clean or smell marvellous or have toilet paper, not at all, but this hole on the ground...all the fluids around that make your feet to be wet... this smell...but now I have to recognize that I would really apeciate if all the toilets I have visited in India would have been like this one!

Just one more example of how perspective change with experience!!

The 'mam told me to go down everytime the bus stopped but I always said "no, no I want to sleep, thanks" and actually was true but also I didn't know how to take care of my luggage if I went down so I had to stay near it...after once, she also offered me some water from a bottle she had already drunk, but even if I was kinda thirsty I politely declined. I spent the 10 hours without even drinking a sip of water, another post is deserved about the indian way of drinking.

I really feel ashamed, not of my behaviour but of my feelings...with all these stupids paranoias that everyone tells you about foreigners travelling in India, specially solo travellers and even more girls...everyone will try to cheat you everytime...whenever someone offers you help just decline it because they only see you as a walking-dollar...never accept anything from anyone because most probably you will get under the effects of some drugs and they will steal all your stuff...with the lack of hygiene ...all these horribles illnes you will suffer for sure just if you breath or eat or drink something that is not sterilized...of course sense common must be always present but...that's it!! This 10 hours bus journey was enough to remind me that things are not always like others tell!

Suddendly the bus stopped and the 'mam told me this was my stop, so I was trying to get ready as soon as possible but...no way...so many things to take with me so the conductor came to help me with the lugagge while the whole bus was waiting for going on with the route, but no one complained...Finally I was in this Udupi bus stand that I had no idea where was it.

Coming back to London for a while, where I wrote down the mobile number of Somesh from my mail, the IAESTE guy that will pick me up in the Manipal bus stand, whenever I arrive there.

I sent him sms from Bangalore telling that I was taking a bus to Udupi and not to Manipal and asking how to arrive from there; as he didn't answer yet I thought this was the time to call him and...imagine my surprise when the guy answering told me... IM NOT THAT SOMESH YOU ARE LOOKING FOR, YOU ALSO SENT ME AN SMS THIS MORNING BUT I DON'T KNOW YOU AND DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT , THIS IS THE WRONG NUMBER AND PLS DONT DISTURB ME AGAIN!! and hanged up.

I called him several times again trying to explain the story but the same answer…

I was a bit worried now, because it was already sunset, with my 2 suitcases that annoyed me really much, in the middle of only God knows where…full of Indian men looking at me like the most weird thing they had ever seen… like looking at the monkeys on the zoo, no idea where I had to reach and even worse that Somesh hadn't got the sms from the early morning, he was not calling to ask me why I was not yet in Manipal when I should be already there and the only thing I knew it was a mobile number that apparently was from the wrong person and the name of Manipal Institute of Technology...that didn´t look enough at all.

It was a man from my bus that stopped also in Udupi and looked to me like reliable and able to speak English was my "third guardian angel” but still not the last one of the day…

I told him that I wanted to go to Manipal, that I was an interchange student and that I only had this mobile number but the person was saying it was the wrong one; I didn’t have any other contact or information about what to do…

I was pretty sure that I had check twice the number from the mail and even more, it was the only indian number I had so...I phoned this number again and passed the mobile to the man that was explaining the situation to the guy that was really upset and told DONT CALL AGAIN PLS!!

The man asked me to wait there, in the middle of this Indian guys with my luggage while he went to ask for a bus to Manipal, it took a long time to my eyes…but…actually it was not that much…but was getting dark and…I didn’t have any idea of what to do or where to go or to whom I could contact…his son came to pick him up…he explained him my story and finally called a ricksaw and told me to go inside…I was expecting that they will came with me or something but…the ricksaw started to move with only me inside…I didn't have any idea were I was going and the answer of the driver everytime I said "Manipal?" was a strange wave movement of the head acompannied by Manipal, Manipal….

Then I saw that the father and his son came also in another ricksaw following us….the road was quite bad, full of holes, the traffic was incredible because the road was shared by cars, buses, ricksaws, motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, cows and dogs...the luggage was almost falling down from the ricksaw, I was thinking….where the hell I’m being driven…in the middle of an absolutely dark , passing trough places I cannot describe now….and suddenly we stopped at a modern blue glass building…the son came down from his ricksaw and told me…this is main university building in Manipal (Mahe building), for sure there must be someone here that can help you and left.
I couldn’t even say thanks… I was a kind of shocked!

At the gate of that building there was a guard so I tryed to ask him but he called another guard, none of them knew anything of what I was talking about…it was late and no one was at the building…but Alhamdullilah a man came out from the building and the guards called him…it was a professor that could speak English…and told me to pay the ricksaw (65 Rs) and that he would drive me to the college hostel center… was my "fourth guardian angel”...so I went into his car, the guards helped me with the luggage and we drove to another place, it was full of students and he asked them where the girl's hostels were but in our way we met small fences for vehicles in the middle of the street, as they were closed we had to turn back and finally we arrived to KC, where we had to wait for a man wearing a Sikh turbant …he told us to sit dowm at his office , welcomed me and said that everything would be solved. He offered us a tea - actually masala chai- horrible and very hot one (now I'm addicted to it) that the professor drunk with the help of a small kind of plate that came down the glass. As the professor did, I drunk almost everything! Sometimes is a hard work to be polite!!
I called again to that mobile number and passed it to the professor, and the guy said PLS DON’T CALL ME ANYMORE AGAIN!!.

The professor was very kind and told me, don’t worry we will find a solution…
I was thinking that probably someone was at the bus stand waiting for a bus coming directly from Bangalore but I was not at any bus station and had no way to contact to anyone…I thought the best idea was to look for some internet café but didn’t look like very likely to be one in the middle of that darkness and roads full of holes and cows...

So the Sikh man, that now I know is the main responsible of college hostels, was phoning some people and finally decided to provide a room for me for that night, we already had the key with us when a guy called Somesh appeared and said to the professor that everything was ready for me and that he could leave…I thought…what the hell….now that I already got a key….so the professor told me that this guy was now the responsible for me and left…

I took my luggage out of the car again to put it in another ricksaw…

Somesh told me that they had 2 posibilities for me: one lodging was free and in the other I should pay, the main differences were the free one has no air-condition and no fridge.
I decided to go first to the free place because almost for sure I would stay in the paid one so has no sense to be moving all the luggage 3 times…
We went by ricksaw to the free one , was a big flat with 3 double rooms…absolutely empty, no people, no furniture, no anything ...the bathrooms were not the best…quite dark…so I said let's see the other one…We left my luggage in the ricksaw and I was not sure about its safety at all even if Somesh said there's no problem…

So we took the ricksaw again and arrived to another place…this time was full of people and with light…for sure this made the diference for me…in that flat there were an Italian guy -Fabrizio-, a Belgium girl that just arrived - Tessa-, a Spanish girl -Ines- and a Portuguese girl -Francisca-…I didn’t have any doubt that I wanted to stay at Valley Flat 203!!
I will share the room with the Portuguese…
I phoned home to tell my mum that I arrived safely after some adventures...and was not a lie at all!!

When we arrived to valley Flat 203, around 7:30 pm, they were almost leaving for dinner…indian schedule...so I joint them…we went to Food Court and ate a pizza, was not prepared to have more new experiences before having a rest in my new bed.

After the dinner we went directly to a Disco called the Edge because tomorrow is holiday... The most funny was Phillip and me drinking a beer...Thanks to God I will have a long rest!

Very long post for a very long day!