Bus Ride - Badami to Gokarna

There are only a dozen passengers on board when we make our 8:00AM departure from the small station in Badami. The ticket taker leans out the door, bellowing Hubliubliubliubli! and a cloud of black diesel belches out the tailpipe as we rumble out. The pale morning light caresses the walls of mud-brick homes and the faces of the women that sweep the dirt in front of their homes + shops, lumping garbage into small piles which roving bands of grey, bristled pigs nose through. The city garbage collection crew at work. Men with skin the color of chocolate wear striking all-white Nehru-style outfits - white hat, dhoti + kurta - and sit on doorsteps reading the Hindustan Times.

The bus bumps over the uneven one-lane highway, frequently dodging to the left to avoid oncoming traffic. The driver blaring the horn all the while. Our bodies all bump and sway in rhythm like ragdolls. We pass fields of luminous, golden sunflowers and women carrying jugs of water on their heads or hips walking barefoot down the road. We dodge a wooden-wheeled cart stuffed with women and children, pulled by a small, plumed horse. Another field of sunflowers looks a bit forlorn, their heads dry and sagging. There are many small, dusty towns with dirt-paved bus stations whose names I do not know for lack of English-language signs. The people stare and point at us. Our fellow passengers chatter or sleep somehow. A child sings and one young man listens to Indian pop on his mobile. Unbelievably long-horned cows blink at our bus passing as they chew hay.

We stop for chai and the bus fills. A woman with a full-length, black burka with only her eyes showing boards, as does an old man sporting a vibrant yellow turban. Moving again, the highway widens to two-lanes, but we still swerve to pass goat herders, tractors and other slow-moving vehicles. Women in saris are but colored dots in bleached fields of corn and grain. A patch of road work is indicated by thorny branches laid across one lane and we bump + jostle even more for the next few kilometers. Antiquated equipment sits in the road and men in t-shirts, lungi (sarong) + flip-flops hoe dirt while women carry woven baskets of rubble on their heads. A typical Indian roadwork crew. Their gypsies camp of tarps is nearby.

At 11:15AM we roll into the Hubli bus stand and 5 min. later, with two newspaper-wrapped packages of steamed rice idli in hand we're on our second bus of the day to our next stop - Ankola. We make several stops at bus stands along the way. At one, vendors pile on too selling a selection of cold drinks, oranges, cashews, gold necklaces, dates, ice cream + multi-colored plastic bangles. Our driver steps out into the sun to enjoy his frozen mango bar.

After this, the highway improves and we make good time, though by this point I'm beginning to feel hot, cramped + bored. The landscape changes from farmland to forest as we descend from the Deccan plateau down through the Western Ghats. Out of the blue, we're stuck in a solid jam of transport vehicles that seems to go on and on It's outrageously hot and dusty and the only thing that seems logical to keep me from going crazy is to use the time to make a photo study of the pile-up. Thus distracted, the next hour and a half of inching along went fairly quickly.

At 5:15PM we board our third bus of the day for the final 26km to Gokarna. It's the golden hour and even the dusty, rubbage-strewn roadside stands manage to look charming. The ocean comes into view and we pass boys playing volleyball, then salt evaporation ponds, then the tile-roofed home of the "Inspector of Salt". Only 5 more kilometers to go.

Just as we departed, we rumble into yet another dirt-paved station. We don our packs and shuffle off the bus. We're here - finally. 271km in a little over 10 hours.... Hmmm, by my calculations (excluding stops) that clocks us in at an average of 15 miles per hour! It's my turn to look for rooms while D waits with the packs. I'm hungry and covered in grime. I want to get this over quickly, and fortunately am successful. When I return to the station a pregnant cow stares at D longingly. I make a joke and discover that in a moment of weakness, he too in hunger bought some chips and shared them with her. I laugh out loud. The tedium of the day is lifting already. :)