At last, the humpy hills of Rajasthan

Left my wonderful friends in Delhi to catch the 12.30 bus to Jaipur.  I don't think I've ever been on such a hair raising trip before.  We inched and nosed  our way out to the suburbs and missed a turning so had to continue along a jam packed 3 lane dual highway for miles in order to turn round. All along the way cars that had missed the same turning were causing chaos by trying to exit on the feeder roads which were jammed with vehicles coming down them.  Our driver steered with one hand, the other alternating between the gear stick and the horn until dusk when he added the flashing lights to his repertoire.  Unfortunately all the lorries have 'use dipper at night', 'keep distance', 'horn please' written on their tail boards.  Our driver obeyed only the last instruction as we veered from one side of the three lane highway to the other to pass vehicles sticking to whichever lane they had chosen to be in.  Unfortunately there were also vehicles that sat astride the dotted lines but most worrying were the motorbikes, tractors, camel carts, cows and even lorries and cars creeping towards us down the inside lane. The conductor had dyed black hair which was silver at the parting and  was a jolly fellow who handed out bottled water. made sure that I comfortable and strapped in my front seat for there was an acre of space between my  seat and the windscreen and the near misses and hammering on of brakes was quite unnerving . The lady next door to me had sniffed heartily when I greeted her as I sat down - she was rather plump and couldn't close her legs so as she was rather short her feet didn't touch the ground and they rolled this way and that like a doll.  Half way to the pit stop she took her fifth phone call (bells, whistles and jingles were a constant annoyance during the trip as everyone except me had a smart phone), a car swept in front of the bus, stopped in the left hand lane so we had to too, my neighbour barged past without a word and got out of the bus and into the car.

At the midway point we had a 20 minute pit stop. There were hundreds of heavy headed chrysanthemums in pots at the entrance, all stiffly to attention with thread around them and their support sticks. Tiny ground squirrels with thin white stripes down their backs were playing tag amongst them and on the lawn 4 men were hunkered down with little spiked tools digging out weeny weeds. We were already late so people were fuming when a bevy of pretty college students took half an hour to turn up and the driver was having a fighting fit with his horn trying to chivvy them back.  We hurtled off again while prissy sounding passengers hissed their disapproval in English at the back of the bus.  We had just reached the humpy hills (it is said they are the 'oldest' in the world) when the sun went down - difficult to get a picture through the cracked windscreen glass.  When  we reached the first stop in Jaipur the bus half emptied and then a crowd of angry men got on, shouting at the driver.  Harsh words, thunderous faces, fists and finally a screaming melee as the driver was dragged out of the bus.  The lady behind me said one of the passengers had changed his mind and got off early and his bag was right at the back of the bin for the final stop and the driver quite rightly had refused to get it out.  But he was forced to in the end as the passenger's friends were extremely hostile. I think it was the first trip this driver had done on the route for the conductor was backseat driving most of the time.  So now I'm safely ensconced in my lovely B&B after a hectic round with the touts and tuc tuc drivers at the bus station.  Weddings are happening, the horoscopes and stars are propitious apparently so fire crackers are exploding everywhere and my stomach feels like it too after a delicious south Indian meal in the local veggie restaurant.  So good night and thanks for all the comments and kind words and stuff.