From Pushkar, our next destination was Bundi, a small beautiful Indian town in Southern Rajasthan with narrow streets, a Star Fort, a big palace and a bit more off the beaten tourist track(so much more chilled out in our sense...). Imagine your favourite little town on a greek island, the southern coast of France, or perhaps near Cadiz in the south of Spain, remove the seaside, add a few temples and turn the clock back about 75 years, and there you are.
The trip from Pushkar to Bundi was one epic journey on the bus, which i will tell you about now.
So travelling by bus in India has high and low points, but regardless, it is always an entertaining experience. The main advantage is that you can just turn up a the bus station and between 1 an 20 min later, there will be a bus leaving to your destination. If you are lucky, it's an "express" bus, which means that it will only take 4-5 instead of 6-7 hours and it will only stop about 10 times instead of 50 times. but no matter what, it is always an entertaining experience :-)The disadvantage: it still takes forever, there is no air conditioning and sometimes it can get really really crowded...
so first we had to take short busride from pushkar to ajmer, during which the bus broke down with a flat tyre. there was of course no replacement tyre, but that doesn't matter, because there was a shop selling them located conveniently just across the road. the changing of the tyre took only about 20 min, and the driver did this with the bus fully loaded with passengers, except 10 guys who got off the bus just to watch the driver change the tyre (and give instructions, advice etc, you know...)
in ajmer, we changed to another bus, with a lot of locals and no other tourists...and here, shortly into our journey, we realized that for this part of the trip, we were the tourist attraction! a very joyful old lady was sitting in front of us, spoke no English, but quickly involved someone else (a relative?) into striking up a conversation with Marc, Jacqui's boyfriend. They always start talking to Marc first and i have made a list of 10 questions that you will always be asked during a conversation with Indians which i will come back to in a later post. The woman was very into singing and dancing, and started teaching Marc an Indian folk song. In return, she wanted to learn a French song. So Marc and I sang her "Les lacs du Connemara", which not only entertained her, but caught the attention of the whole bus. From there one, Marc, the poor guy, would not get more than a minute of rest for the rest of the journey...and eventually, they also involved Jacqui and myself into the conversation, and all three of us got invited multiple times to visit multiple people's home town, marry their daughters and sons, and of course sing "Les lacs du Connemara". Damn it, we had already made plans in Bundi...:-)
This bus journey was both the most entertaining and exhausting experience in India so far, but it truly reflected the spirit of this country: people are very nice, extremely curious and colourful, welcoming and wonderful. At one point, they can be a bit pushy, but you can't really be mad at them.
So we arrived in Bundi totally knackered, but we checked into a luxurious accomodation. In India, particularly in Rajasthan, there are many old heritage houses, so-called "havelis" that have been turned into hotels. the one we stayed in for this night was more than 250 years old, had beautiful mural paintings, antique furniture, lamps and decoration, and a beautiful view of Bundi Palace, lying atop a rock just behind the hotel. Exhausted from the epic bus journey, we just had a quick stroll through town and went for an early night, also because we wanted to get up early the next day to climb up to the Star Fort and visit the palace before the heat started to become unbearable.
