Based on real life
Try this.
Live in New York and complain about a Chinatown bus at age 23. It’s so smelly! It smells like stale bathroom cleaner! It’s popular to complain in America.
Live in India at age 24 and take a bus, for 18 hours, that has its window panes missing, up treacherous Himalayan mountain-single-lane-dirt “roads”. No headlights. Just a horn like you’ve never heard before, and driver who’s got the hairpin turns memorized because he’s done it 1,000 times and he’d rather not die either. A loud shrine to Lakshmi takes up the first row of seats. No bathroom, or other foreigners, or English speakers. Not much by way of conversation besides ”What country?” Try to understand when you’re even supposed to get off, because it keeps and going, making stops at random points for someone to get off or on. You know how they talk about enlightenment in India? This is when it happens. There comes a point when you think you cannot hold yourself from falling out of the window any longer. But your biceps triumph after glimpsing over the edge… The light of the moon illuminates mile-deep valleys that you and your bus could topple into. Hold on tighter. Cry a bit. Realize something… while it is all very dangerous (and arduous), it is also beautiful. Himalayas in the moonlight? Undeniably so.
Return to New York, and never complain about a Chinatown bus again, or any other transportation actually. Don’t bother to tell anyone why everything isn’t so bad.
2 years later, read a stupid Chinatown bus rant on a popular blog. Get fed up with the Chinatown bus-hating. While eating a bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll, write a paragraphs-long comment about Indian Himalayan busses to the stupid article.. Have no one read it. But secretly hope it inspires someone to discover India. Or make your own plans to return.
ticket to ride
on a bus to mumbai from our sleepy beach village of anjuna. the last leg of the journey has arrived…we purchased two sleeper-bus tickets not 10 minutes ago from the travel agency ride outside this cyber cafe. commence the beatles getting stuck in my head. so we will arrive in bombay on sunday morning. have sunday and monday to hang out with KC, the awesome guy who hosted us our first 3 nights in india…the perfect way to tie up the trip. tuesday morning we’ll get to the airport at 6am… 3 hours before takeoff because thats what they say to give international flights from mumbai. i’ll be sure to dump our weapons, drugs, and chopped-up corpses before going through security. THAT IS A JOKE (although eric does have some doggie skeleton bones to bring back. we thought they’d make a pleasant dining room table centerpiece. i told him to keep them in HIS bag).
i cant wait to eat an entire bag of doritos. and drink right from the faucet. oh and seeing my parents might be nice, too, but i’m not sure. they only gave me life or something. american streets might seem orderly and empty. and i KNOW ohio’s quietness is going to creep me out. new york, i’ve already decided, is going to make me cry tears of joy!! ok now im just babbling. i wanted to stop by and tell you about the homestretch to mumbai. love
