India 2, Amritsar To Dharamsala

The train station wasn't too far from our hotel, the very friendly room attendant had ordered a cycle rickshaw for us, however the thought of an hour on a cycle rickshaw followed by about 8 hours of train and bus travel didn't sound appealing so we grabbed an auto rickshaw instead.

We arrived relatively early this was our first big travel the destination was Dharamsala. Amritsar is a small station so there wasn't much rush.

Our trip on the train was nice, since we were going to Dharamsala we had to get off the train at Pathankot and grab a 5 hour public bus the rest of the way. I was famished at Pathankot and we decided to grab a meal just outside the train station at an authentic Punjabi dhaba. It was a small dark dingy restaurant with a big wok and tandoor roaring on the footpath outside. I suspect it was frequented by taxi and truck drivers rather than foreign tourists, the patrons all seemed to be eyeing us as we walked in. I am glad for eating there though as for about RS60 - less than $2 we had roti, naan, dhal and veggie curry. It was absolutely delicious, possibly because we were hungry, food always tastes better when you're hungry!

With our bellies satiated we trekked back out into the sweltering heat, it was about 2pm by now. We were hunting for the bus stand and my only weapon was a little broken Hindi. 'Bus stand kaha heyy' I would blurt to anyone who'd listen - 'where is the bus stand', eventually someone informed us it was about 1/2 a kilometre away and instead of walking in the heat with our heavy packs we decided to grab a cycle rickshaw. Bargaining as a foreigner is fun, there’s no way to get a fair price so it's best just to do your best and enjoy it. He started at RS50 and we bargained him down to RS20(still way too much) and hopped on. Along the short journey we noticed he was working quite hard to lug us and our luggage along in the burning sun. We decided to give him RS50 anyway, when we stopped at the bus station he looked tired so we gave him 100, the smile on his face alone was worth it. One of the men at the station saw this and said something to him along the lines of 'This is your lucky day!'. The thing is to us that is about $2.50 while to him that's a day’s wage, it might allow him to enjoy something he normally could never afford such as a movie ticket or a nice meal. We never felt too bad getting ripped off and it was quite common for us to give double the fare to cycle rickshaw drivers. We were suckers, I know, but their job is a long day of hard labour for little money and no respect so it hardly seems fair to screw them out of 5 or 10 Rupees, an amount of money we wouldn't even pick up off the ground if we found it in Australia.

The Pathankot public bus stand wasn't quite as chaotic as I'd imagined, a rather large dustbowl surrounded by ticket vendors and food stalls. It was reasonably busy with people milling around and busses roaring in and out. Upon finding the correct booth for busses going to Dharamsala I discovered the attendant was fast asleep at his post. Rousing him took a few subtle ahems and after a leisurely round of stretches he finally asked me what I wanted. After a brief discussion I was able to buy 2 tickets to Dharamsala and also find out which bus to board, it was already waiting with people already boarding. We boarded the bus and grabbed two seats near the middle. Waiting for the bus to leave was like waiting for the previews to end in a movie theatre, there was a parade of street vendors who would each take turns standing inside near the front of the bus putting on an elaborate marketing campaign to sell their wares. I had expected them to hop off as the bus started moving however this only seemed to make them more determined to make a sale. A good 5 minutes after we had started the last of them bailed out, of course the driver didn't slow down to let them off.

This being the first long distance bus journey of the trip in my infinite wisdom I had brought a pair of dust masks for my girlfriend and I. They served a few important functions, one was to keep the dust - and there was a lot of it, out of our lungs, the second was to make us look like scary aliens, the last was to broadcast my girlfriend and I as newbie foreign travellers ripe to be laughed at and mocked in languages unfamiliar to us, the dust masks performed this function brilliantly.

The bus was full of a mix of foreigners and Indians, the foreigners were all heading to Dharamsala while the Indians would hop on and off at the various 'stops' along the way. They are only really stops by name though as the bus rarely came to a complete stop, rather men and women would run and jump on clinging to the bus for dear life. Only for the very elderly did the bus wheels actually stop turning. Along the way the bus emptied out and filled up several times, the Indian's view of personal space is very different to yours or mine. To them, the space you physically occupy is your personal space, everything else is fair game. Frequently people would lean on or over me, press up against me and just in general be too close for comfort. Too close for my comfort that is, because it occurred to me they were very comfortable.

Along the way I witnessed some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever seen, enjoyed at similarly breathtaking speed. Dharamsala is at an altitude, climbing the mountain would force most people to slow down despite the busted up look of the bus it seemed to climb the mountain and take corners like a race car. That driver should have been driving in the Indianapolis 500 rather than wasting his time shuttling people up a mountain! After about 6 long hours we arrived in Dharamsala and caught a rickshaw up to our final destination McLeod Gange