Monkey music: Way

For any day journey in India, I highly recommend traveling by bus. It may be more expensive than traveling by train (still a bargain at one eighth the cost of bus travel in The States), and precludes the option of sleeper-type seating arrangements, but it offers almost unimaginable flexibility and trip-hackability, but most importantly, it's the way to see India.

Trains offer panoramic views of the vast and unbelievably variable Indian countryside, but run at fixed times which are often inconvenient and far apart. Train stations are also usually some distance from populated areas and because of low volume of traffic, but the largest "main" and "junction" stations are often desolate and in disrepair. Buses, on the other hand, offer, for (on average) a fifty percent longer, arse-spanking ride, routes through city and country, availing the passenger of unequaled opportunities to see every face of India.

On the way to Rameswaram, you can see colourful, painted fishing boats and a sky full of circling eagles, and instead of skirting around them, buses bring you across the Western Ghats(?) between Kerala and Tamil Nadu on narrow, potholed roads that wind between hidden villages and lush green forests, through the cool mountains that are two and a half kilometres closer to heaven than the rest of South India. Still occasionally strewn with rubbish. Still too many things that made me want to melt with joy when I saw them. I can't start because I would never finish. These mountains are beautiful and amazing, and they top my list of places to go to to escape from the world forever.

Best of all, buses stop at towns, cities and bus stations along the way. Bus stations are hot, noisy, bustling and intensely alive - not to be missed.

The outcomes you face at each bus stop or station: You could miss your intended connection, in which case the literal herds of buses massing at each station offer a range of alternate routes to your destination-- but more often than not, the bus you want leaves in five minutes. Off-duty drivers and conductors are friendly and endlessly helpful. Indian bus drivers are among the most skilful in the world. India, strangely enough for being a very large and very populated country, is served by mostly single lane roads. Buses, trucks, cars and mopeds fly past each other, sending half (or all) their wheels off the road to brush past each other with a flourish of horns. After riding Indian buses for about two kilometres per rupee (two and a half cents), I will never pay to ride a roller coaster again.

Some buses sag on their left sides from worn suspension. I've seen buses in perfect condition sagging on their left sides as they ply the roads they are packed full and have ten people hanging out of each door.

The Indian bus network is a marvel of chaos and synchrony. There is very little distinction between long distance buses that ply the highways between districts and states, and the local buses that run loops between towns. They are in comfort and operation - some simply go further than others. Both stop at villages along the way, and neither adhere to any kind of strict schedule. Information is disseminated through word of mouth and observed in patterns and timings.

Somehow, Indian travelers attune themselves to this music. They must either know the buses inside out or not at all, simply slipping onto and off buses that bring them closer to their destination with each new route. I can't conceive of this system being any more efficient and effective than it already is, and buses are always full - and by Indian standards. I've had many a ride where I spent more time outside the bus than inside it.