There were no crowds, no clusters of people, no food stalls spilling out into the streets, no bellowing across balconies. I found Geneva's immediate calm disappointing and longed for the alluring disquiet of Iberia.
Mysore
The typical Indian bus resembles scrap. It is made of metal sheets, generously dented, perhaps a metre wide. The sheets are joined one to another by rivets, and this leaves a visible seam – covered and reinforced, in places, by a strip of dull-silver steel. It has rectangular openings positioned along its sides. The openings resemble windows, but cannot be shut. Three horizontal bars, or two or one, dissect the openings, and appear to serve an only incidental purpose: the bus gets enormously full, so full that people clutch and ride its bloated sides, using the bars as convenient handles. It is also chronically overused. The steel strips spring away from bus’s sides and protrude at sharp, bent-metal angles, making the vehicle look as if it is, quite literally, bursting at the seams.
Three men are normally employed inside the typical Indian bus: the driver, the conductor and the conductor’s assistant. The driver hunches over a large steering wheel. He has brisk hands, hands that swerve, hoot, smoke, grind gears, swirl. He knows his vehicle is amongst the largest on the road. It is his advantage. The driver’s seat is crudely sprung. It bounces, because India’s roads are bad: narrow, potholed, often congested. The typical Indian bus covers about one hundred kilometres every four hours. Continue reading Mysore>>
