ooty not letting go...
had chai at a kada opposite the bus stand. we had to take a bus to the checkpoint, some 2.5 hours away. we were just wishing we had the bike.
now was the time to inquire about the earliest bus that would take us to the checkpoint. The name was 'kakkinalli'. Neither of us were able to remember the name and thank God i stored it on my phone! had to keep looking at it everytime we had to use it!
Our man was in highest spirits that morning. i think the sun charged him up... whatever it was everyone at the bus stand knew that we were two romeos wanting to go somewhere but not getting the bus. we finally got into a bus after much debate.
Our bus started at around 6:30am. Phil understood that he could not reach home by 11. He desperately wanted to call all his girl friends to cancel the dates he had with them but the network prevented him from doing it.
the ride down was awesome. the valley looked gorgeous. and for the first time i felt like everything we went through during the night made sense.
well... looks like adventure did not want to let go of us! the bus stopped suddenly and we realised that the bus had a loose wheel about to come off! sheesh....
we started off again and half an hour down the road... foooosh! puncture! heavens... whst was happening man... we thought!! everyone got down and all the men (except us) crowded around the tyre giving puncture gyan to the driver!
nothing budged even 45 minutes after the incident. by now the women were lying down on mats on the road side and kiddies were happily playing. we were the only guys who were debating about the next best thing to do!! our options included walking down to the check point (which we later realised was 40 km far!), waiting for the bus or hitching a ride on another bus. nothing seemed to work. we did some serious talk too.
finally phil agreed to start walking... we walked down enjoying the road, trying our best to stop every vehicle that passed.... after what seemed like half the distance to bangalore, a bus stopped for us! oh man... the aches and pains were on....
but that was just not our day...!