I woke up sick; my first real sickness since coming to India. I took nearly a month a half (not bad) and this morning I woke up with a bad case of the runs and was constantly on the edge of vomiting. This is not a good day to be sick because I’ve booked myself on a bus tour — probably the only one I will do while in India. However, I feel the need to be driven around rather than wander and explore, for one day at least. It was sheer will and determination that got me out of the room and kept me going through the entire day — that and a huge swig of pure unaltered lemon juice, which made my stomach shrink into a tiny little walnut.
I’m glad I made the decision to go on the tour because I met some interesting characters: Sheeva and Santhos (newlyweds from Bangalore) who gave me the detailed tour of all the sites, the professor and his wife, and an old retired Indian History professor (who had many theories and stories of all sites). His wife was a dear old lady who distributed cookies amongst the group. Then there was the philosopher, a middle aged man from Lebanon. It was his second time in India and he had his own versions of Hindu stories to share and tell.
The other characters were the three tour guides: the insane driver whose goal was to incite terror but not kill us in the process. The joker who was running the tour but mostly sat in the front of the bus and distracted the insane driver. I’ll give him credit, however, he was funny. And, the yeller: his role was to hang out the door of the bus and yell” “Wait. Wait. Go. Go. Go. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. Wait. Go. Hurry.”
The destinations: