And That's Why You Don't Ride the Bus in India

I love taking public transportation in new places that I visit. I think it's a great way to connect with the natural rhythm of a city. It gives you the opportunity to do some serious people watching, chat with locals and begin chipping away at the invisible wall between tourist and resident. So when my colleagues and I were deciding whether to take the bus or a cab to the village of Konark yesterday, I was the biggest cheerleader for taking the bus.

Now I recognized that there would be some down sides to taking the bus in India. I knew it was going to be very crowded, which opens you up to the possibility of theft or harassment. And I knew that all of the bodies crammed into a non-air conditioned vehicle midday was going to be oppressively hot. And then of course there is the issue of the quality of the roads themselves, which would make the whole experience feel like a never-ending ride on Rolling Thunder at Great Adventure. But it all seemed worth it for the chance to actually feel like I lived in Orissa.

What I didn't factor in while doing my mental calculus, however, was small children. Small children with weak stomachs. Small children with weak stomachs who puke all over my co-worker one and half hours into our three hour bus ride.

And that's why you don't ride the bus in India.

To her credit, my co-worker handled the ordeal like a champ. She cleaned herself off as best she could with bottled water and agreed to continue on with our day trip as planned.

Our first destination was the Sun Temple, which is actually a temple complex made up of three buildings. As our tour guide told us the three signified the life cycle (child, adult, elder); the cycle of the day (morning, afternoon, evening); the seasons (summer, winter, monsoon); and Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer).


Each temple had carvings all along the outside. We had hired a tour guide to give us some context to understand the images. The tour started off benign enough. Our guide showed us the dancing hall where there were images of Shiva dancing and the young Krishna being very naughty by stealing and eating butter.

But then the carvings got a bit naughtier than that. It turns out that majority of the images depicted on the Sun Temple are drawn from the Kama Sutra. So as the images became more amorous, our tour guide became more succinct. He'd point at carvings, mutter something quickly, and then walk as far away as possible as we took a look. Towards the end, he gave up all pretenses of giving this kind of tour to four women. He just borrowed our cameras and clicked photographs of the carvings he'd normally give details about to his groups. As we said our goodbyes, he was very kind and encouraged us to come back again some day....with our husbands.

We followed up the tour with a walk on a nearby beach where a bunch of families were milling around. By this time it was 5 o'clock and the weather was perfect. The sun had gone down and there was a breeze coming up from the bay. We rolled up our pants and splashed around in the warm water. As we were drying our feet and getting ready to go, my co-worker, who still had dried vomit visible on her white top, said "I don't mind taking the bus back."

So we headed to the bus depot, and I sat in the last row of the bus next to the window. As we made our way back to Bhubaneswar, I leaned out the window, letting the wind rush across my face, and watched as scenes of Orissa flickered past.