Santa Cruz

Today we were in no rush at all. We’d seen what we wanted to see in Mumbai, so we had a big fat lie in and a leisurely get up and warm shower. Today was our last day in Mumbai so we needed to check out by 10:30, so we packed up our stuff and chilled in the common area for a little while. We dedicated some time this morning/afternoon to planning what we would do for the next few weeks as well as book flights into Nepal. We spent a few hours researching and adding things to the plan before we both got hungry and went back to our trusty street food man for Chinese Bhel for the last time.

Tonight we were getting the bus to Udaipur, as our waiting list tickets for the train hadn’t come through. Rather than suffer a 17 hour journey on a train in general class again, we’d booked a luxury bus with our own TVs, films and all the trimmings. It would take just as long as the train, but hopefully we’d get some decent sleep. We went out to get snacks for the bus, the standard crisps, biscuits and bananas before going back to the hostel to chill out before it was time to grab an Ola (Indian Uber) to the pickup spot. The pickup location on the RedBus app was just at the side of the motorway, so we waited for a little while keeping track of the buses location...it was on its way to us, just very slowly. Eventually the bus pulled up, it was a different model bus to what it said online so we wanted to check that it was going to Udaipur, the man grunted at us and ushered us on. We found our beds and set up camp for the night. I must admit, it was certainly worth spending a little bit more money for a bit of comfort on these long journeys.

After watching Mission Impossible Fallout (great film!) the bus stopped in a random location to refuel and where we could try and get some proper food as we were only had snack...we had tried to get something a few times before but there was just crisps and junk! This time was equally unsuccessful, however even more so as the bus loudly sounded its horn and began to drive off...without us! Tom was faster than me to react and sprinted to the bus and started banging the door until he stopped to let us on. We were not happy at the driver at all and I had a go at him saying that they need to communicate better with their passengers, in response he just grunted at me... back to bed then.

A little while later we stopped at a slightly more official looking place that were actually selling proper food. We both got 2 samosas, devoured them and then a friendly Indian guy asked us if we wanted to try his crisps...we both tried a few and they were nice, and then the guy decided that he was going to give the entire packet to us, what a gent! We got back on the bus and I passed out for the night in the extremely comfy beds.Read more