Given that getting to McLeod Ganj was a nightmare to begin with, we figured that getting out would be equally difficult. Unfortunately, we were right. We were faced with a dilemma: take a 12-hour bus to Dehra Dun and then another 1-hour bus to Rishikesh, or take the 5-hour bus to Pathankot and then a 12-hour train to Rishikesh. We had heard some terrifying horror stories about the buses, and weren’t too keen to test our luck on night bus, so the train it was.

But first, back on the bus. The porter climbed atop the rickety bus and attached our bags to the rails. After feeling relatively sure that the bags wouldn’t fly off during the journey, we got on the bus. There were only a few people on, including a Stunningly Beautiful Teenage girl and two of her friends, sitting opposite us. When we got to Dharamsala and stopped at the bus station, the girl started speaking to me. Her name was Radha and, as with so many locals, she was just trying to test out her English, I think. T got off the bus to go look for some snacks for us, and she started talking to me.

When we would hit a lull in the conversation, there would be a pause and then I would hear a little voice saying Allie? And she would have another question, about T or where I was from, or if I wanted to come to stay at her house. Sadly, our train was already booked, so I couldn’t. About halfway through the ride, she leaned forward and asked for a snap. We thought she wanted us to take a picture of her, but she wanted a picture of me instead. We didn’t have any, but I appreciated the thought. I loved Radha.

The bus ride was spectacular on the way downhill, past snow capped mountains and hollowed-out valleys and through electric green fields. Suddenly, the bus started getting really crowded, to the point that T literally had his face lodged firmly in the belly of a round Sikh man . More and more people kept cramming themselves in and eventually the Sikh man looked down at T and smiled, saying, This is India. It sure is, dude.

After several inexplicable stops, including one during which the Sikh man told us to get off and then returned, yelling GET BACK ON! GET BACK ON!, we got to Pathankot. As before, T and I were the only original passengers. As we were standing to get off the bus, an Indian man smiled at me. I smiled back, and as I was passing him, he took my hand and kissed it. Uh, ok. Then he got off the bus and shook hands with T. T started to climb on top of the bus to get the bags, and the guy kissed my hand again. Then, out of nowhere, he hugged me. So I’m standing there with a stranger grabbing me, my husband climbing up the back of an Indian bus, mouthing DO YOU HAVE EVERYTHING? (please note he was not asking ARE YOU OKAY, BEING MOLESTED BY THIS TOTAL STRANGER?). It was right then that I decided to stop smiling at Indian dudes.

Of course the bus was an hour late, meaning we had only about a half hour to get to the train station. We took a bicycle rickshaw across town, with a tiny old man pedaling away down pot-holed, darkened streets. We got there in time, but weren’t sure whether we were confirmed onto the train, because the trains passenger list said we were waitlisted. Then, we got on the wrong train. Again. Fortunately, there were already people in our seats, or else we would have gone to Kashmir: about 12 hours in the wrong direction.

Eventually the right train arrived, and we found people in our seats again. We had booked third-class sleeper seats, and were assigned two bottom bunks. When we got onto the train, three women were sitting in our seats. Exchange, they said, pointing to their top bunks. Fine, fine. We just wanted to sleep anyway, and it was already 10pm and we had been on the bus for five hours.

This might have been our dumbest move yet. Giving the women the bottom bunk allowed the to chatter away as long as they wanted. Yak yak yak for hours, and then they finally went to sleep. Of course, two of them snore like freight trains; one with kind of a nasal snort and the other with a deep, rattling phlegmy breath. Yippee. Then, just as T and I went to sleep, one of them turned on the fan, which woke us right up. I fell asleep again and then woke up to my blanket being thrown on me, apparently because it was dangling too far over the edge.

Eventually, we fell asleep but surprise! At 5am, the light came on. Apparently, it wasn’t enough that these women took our beds, talked and snored all night and then turned on the fan so that they were comfortable, they decided to wake us up BEFORE DAWN as well. Never in my life have I wanted to smite someone so badly. AND THEN, they bought some damn chai. If you know me at all, you know the one thing I cannot abide is nasty mouth noises. I have to physically leave the room if someone is chewing with their mouth open or snapping on gum. Guess what? These women were champion tea slurpers.

Just as I was contemplating throwing myself out the window onto an oncoming train, they decided that 6am was an excellent time to start calling their friends and wishing them a happy birthday. Because EVERYONE wants to hear happy birthday at 6am!

I am never doing anything nice for anyone again. I don’t care if they are 90 years old—next time, if someone is in our seats, they are moving straight away or they will face the wrath of the thighs.

After the Shatabdi to Amritsar, T was convinced that all Indian trains serve food. They do not. Here’s the picture of T when we arrived in Rishikesh, on about 3 hours sleep, having eaten half a bag of chips in the past 24 hours. There is no hair gel in his hair; that’s all sleep, or lack thereof.