The Bus

I arrived in Ernakulam before the sun came up on Wednesday, February 18th. I had stayed at Sadhana Forest a bit longer than planned, but was now on the road again and headed to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary near the town of Kumily. There is no train to Kumily - one must take the bus. I was pretty excited. As of yet, I hadn't made a long distance bus trip in India. So after the sun came up, I rickshawed it to the bus stand and climbed aboard.

Buses in India are unlike any buses I've ever been on before. Like normal, there are two rows of seats separated by an aisle. But on the left side of the bus the high backed padded seat seats two and on the right side - the driver's side - the seat seats three. Canvassed, accordion like shades drop down to cover the windows. When lifted and clipped into place however, two horizontal bars rather than glass separate you from the outside world. The door reaches the height of these windows, stopping well short of the bus's roof. It opens outward and when pulled swings an effortless 180 degrees as people push forward up the four steps between the road and the aisle. As this happens, the man charged with collecting fares rises in his brown uniform and starts after them. But before he passes the door, he pulls two cords. The fist connects the bus's roof with the handle of the open door and a quick tug closes it with a bang. The second rings a bell and signals the driver to gun it once again.

During the first bit of the six hour journey, this method of driving didn't seem too out of the ordinary. It was the fairly typical got-somewhere-to-go-fast urban driving I've become accustomed to. We overtook cars and trucks alike as the fare collector walked the aisle asking destinations, calculating fares, and handing customers tiny receipts printed from the contraption hung around his neck. But when the roadways changed from straight urban thoroughfares to twisted and winding mountainous lanes and we were still barreling along, I began to worry.

Never in all my travels have I encountered a group of people more reckless behind the wheel. The bus drivers that operate the stretch of tea covered hills from Kottayam to Kumily are either very brave or very stupid men. I sat on both my forward and return journeys torn between fear and reckless abandon as we overtook on blind corners, tilted perilously over non-existent guardrails, and made neck-jerking stops to avoid collision. No amount of banana chips and chai could make such turbulence enjoyable. How the fare collector manages to keep his down while being huddled to and fro in the aisle is beyond me. From now on, I plan to stick to trains as much as possible.