8.1.06 - Going North

Yesterday we bussed it up further up Goa to attend a communion of a cousin. Long story short, we missed the congregation!

Much unlike London busses, the busses here are just a lil different.
At the busstop, the conductor if you will stands outside the bus and shouts the destination of the bus over and over - "Quepem Quepem QuepemQuepem!" With the accent its quite hard to tell where one word does and the other begins.
London busses fit two each side of the aisle, in India you fit in a third!

I enjoyed it. In the bus you get to take the route through the country.

The second bus was an express, rather than a local, so it stopped only at midpoint and its destination.

Our third bus was a little different. It was packed to the walls. The next was hours after. So the instructor, rather than leaving us tourists on the pavements opened up the driver's compartment and ushered us in! The view from the cockpit is better than what you see out the passenger windows (despite a strained neck) and it was only a 5 rupee ticket!

Today (Sunday), on the other hand, we got the train.
Forget the stereotype of tea sellers and people on the roof, we didn't have any of that, or not in Goa at least. They're diesel. A two-way track and only one platform! That meant a high step-up onto a ladder and then in.
Inside the seats were painted sky-blue, wooden and rather than windows, bars. It wasn't so bad at all coz it was breezy. Trouble is, every ten seconds the driver blows the horn to let people know the train is coming at level crossings and so forth. The horn would suit a ship just fine.
Oh, and you cant run faster than the train, not at full speed.

Finally, on our way back we had a different driver to the one who had been driving us around the night before, and his taxi already had passengers- a few miles into our drive and a frog jumped out from nowhere! It was harmless, as it didn't have any bright colourings, so we let it sit tight on the door. Minutes later I felt a cold slither on my neck as it sprung off me and onto my bag!