Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 6129R/$123
This morning we got down for breakfast around 10am, which was pretty late since we had to checkout before noon. After breakfast, Patty wasn't feeling great, so we asked to extend our checkout until 1pm. The hotel agreed to this, so Patty had a chance to sleep for a bit.
We were down in the lobby around 1:15pm and ready to go. We sat in the front lobby for about half an hour, waiting for the staff to figure out how much we still owed. There is only one competent member of the entire staff that we have met, and God bless her. There are three guys often manning the front desk during the day and they are absolutely useless. We have asked them to call a phone number for us on several occasions and it turns out they don’t know how to use the phone. I don’t understand how they have jobs.
Our final bill came to much less than we were expecting. We ended up getting the room for around $15 less per night than we had agreed to. I’m not sure what happened, but we certainly didn't argue. Perhaps the manager did us a favour for having to deal with her useless staff. In any case, this made us very happy!
We were able to store our luggage for the day in the hotel, and then we were off. Patty was determined to buy the shoes she had seen and loved yesterday or the day before, and also to buy a “Western-appropriate” (i.e., something she can wear in Winnipeg) kurta or tunic. So off we went, into the blistering heat that is Mumbai. I can’t imagine what summer feels like. This is their winter!!
We decided to first grab a coffee at Café Coffee Day, attached to our hotel. I got a cold coffee and Patty got a warm one. I think I made the better choice! We chatted there for a while and then were on our way.
Our first stop was back to Fabindia, where Patty inquired whether they sold any clothing. Turns out Fabindia has another outlet nearby that only sells clothing, and they gave us vague directions on how to get there. We decided we’d check out the other Fabindia location on our way home, and continued on to Linking Road, where Patty’s shoes were waiting for her. Truth be told, she picked out some nice looking shoes for excellent prices. They were nicer and cheaper than anything we could find in Winnipeg.
After Patty had satiated her desire for shoes for the day, we decided to satiate our desires for McDonald’s, and went to eat there. Conveniently, it was across the street from the shoe stores. We enjoyed lovely McChicken meals, as well as a six-piece Chicken McNuggets.
After our romantic meal, we decided to try to find the elusive Fabindia outlet. We picked up an auto-rickshaw and told him where we’d like to go. We weren't sure whether he understood us at all, and after stressing out a little thinking he didn't know where he was going, he dropped us off right outside the outlet. We are paranoid of getting screwed! It’s really bad.
Turns out it was a pretty nice store and had many different kinds of kurtas and tunics, but nothing worked for Patty, unfortunately. The search for a tunic continues.
We were a little late leaving for our bus at this point, but wandered somewhat blindly back to the hotel on foot anyway. We didn't feel like trying to communicate where our hotel was to a rickshaw driver.
We grabbed our bags from the hotel and hopped in a taxi just outside. The ride took about 30 minutes and we arrived at the stop in plenty of time. The bus stop was basically like a city bus stop, with no indication that private buses pick up people from here, but there were other travelers also waiting, so that made us feel better.
Around 9pm, the scheduled time of our pickup, a bus pulled up to the curb and a couple young men jumped out and started checking people’s tickets. He checked our ticket and said we needed to come on this bus because it would take us to the next stop where our bus was waiting. This sounded fishy to us, but it was confirmed by others, so we hopped on.
The next 20 minutes or so was pretty stressful. We didn't know where they were taking us, whether they’d made a mistake telling us to get on, or whether we’d make it to the bus before it left. We weren't told any of this by the travel agent…how would we even know to ask whether that would happen!? Plus, the guy probably had no idea this is how it would work anyways. India is starting to kill me a little.
We stopped once to pick up some real passengers and had to vacate where we had been sitting to accommodate them. Apparently we didn't get off at this stop. We waited at this stop for what felt like an eternity, and then finally we got moving. Another five minutes got us to our bus. From the outside it looked like a better bus than we had ridden so far. Thankfully, the inside was also much better. We even discovered that there was a plug-in for electrical devices! Surely, we thought, our luck is changing!
Sadly, this was not to be. After watching an episode and a half of the Daily Show with John Stewart, we started to feel sick and dizzy because of a smell we were sure was gas. It didn't make us feel any better that our windows didn't open and that there was a door separating the driver from the rest of the cabin. Basically, the bus was airtight and we thought gas was leaking into the cabin.
I jumped down from our bed and looked around. Two guys staying in the compartment behind us looked out their door to see what I was up to. I went up to them to ask if they smelled gas. Neither of them spoke more than a word or two of English, but we eventually came to an understanding that the compartment did, in fact, smell like gas. A young man who was sleeping across the aisle from us, who spoke better English, also agreed that there was a gas smell. At this point, I found this quite upsetting, and so did Patty. She was feeling worse than me and I, at least, was having visions of the bus driver pulling into Goa with a busload of dead people behind him.
By this point, Patty was firmly set on getting off the bus at the most convenient drop off point. She was feeling very ill and was panicking a little bit. I went to go speak to the driver’s assistant and told him there was a gas smell. Immediately, he was furious that I had had the audacity to open the door into the front. I tried to communicate to him that there was a gas smell, but he wouldn't even entertain the thought. He pretty much pushed me back into the compartment and closed the door. This little dance continued for at least two more times until, finally, Patty and I decided to just jump into the front with the driver and his assistant. If we had to sit up there with them the whole ride, that was fine. We’d rather be alive.
We slipped into the compartment quickly enough so the assistant guy couldn't stop us. We sat down next to the driver on a ledge and explained over and over how there was an awful smell in the compartment and that everyone could smell it. Finally, after endless bickering, the assistant guy went into the compartment and came back with some gunky white stuff. He showed it to us and made us smell it. Apparently, from what Patty understood, they use this stuff as an air freshener. An air freshener!!
I guess they put this stuff under the mattresses, so he removed the stuff under ours. When we went back to our bed, the smell was mostly gone, and we were very much relieved. We watched a couple more episodes of the Daily Show before we realized that it was making us feel car sick. We took a couple pills for nausea and then closed our eyes and tried to get some sleep.
Once again, like pinballs, we bounced around in the cabin all night long. I’m thinking this is the last sleeper bus we’ll ever take in India.
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