Trifter

To fully appreciate the beauty of taking an overnight coach (AKA the night bus: sleeper) from one city to another in India, one must first understand the nature of ‘traffic’ in India. To begin with, road markings are mere ornamentation; decorations, if you like, to intersperse between the potholes. Nobody takes them seriously. Whereas a road might be’ decorated’ with white lines to indicate three lanes, a good five cars, three scooters carrying a father, mother and two un-helmeted children each, a couple of rickshaws and the odd dog will all be vying for space in the same area. If you’ve read Harry Potter’s expedition on the night bus — which magically shrinks to fit between two other objects — you’ll get the idea of what’s going on in these drivers’ heads. Although, I doubt they’re imbued with magical powers, they nevertheless try and fit into the smallest space possible, just to get that precious few inches ahead of the queue.

Secondly, everyone is in a hurry. Thus, red lights are taken with a pinch of salt, honking your horn is obligatory (in fact, lorries have the sign “horn, ok, please?” painted on their bumpers, and pedestrians are treated with contempt and are obviously considered fair game if they desire to cross a road. And of course, all lorry drivers and bus drivers have to drive at break-neck speed to show off their prowess. At all times, even when rounding a hairpin bend.

Now, image lying down, fully recumbent, on a double bunk bed, curtained off from the other bunks around you, peering up through the window at the millions of stars in the sky, going at what seems to be a hundred miles an hour, over pot holed roads, bump-i-ti-bump, with the driver merrily hooting away, and that’s the night bus. It’s fabulous!