Bardoli

June 7
We decided to go to Bardoli today because Priya needed to fix her internet key and I wanted to look for postcards and nice cloth material for my mom. We decided to take the bus there and when it finally arrived, I was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t packed like in the Bollywood movies where people had to run and ride on the outside of the bus because it was so overcrowded. Sitting in the back moved my stomach into my throat because I was literally lifted off my seat at every bump, which was about every 2 minutes.
Priya was in search of a “Reliance Store” where they fix internet keys and computers, which we didn’t end up finding. Every person we asked either never heard of such a store or pointed us in the wrong direction. After 20 minutes of our “effort” to find it, we gave up and decided to get cold coffee from a small restaurant. As soon as I was done with my last sip I knew I had drunk trouble. My stomach began to curse at me for feeding it milk and no food. We both had given up on our searches and we ended up spending more money traveling to Bardoli than time in Bardoli.
Catching a bus back to Kadod was not as easy as it was catching one to Bardoli. We missed the first bus as we watched people push and shove their way in so much so that the money collector could not close the door. Thirty minutes later, we rushed onto the second bus and the adventure began.
There was nowhere to hold on to and nowhere to move. I was squashed between a man who continuously stared at me in an angry matter and a woman clutching her child with my butt in her face. The best part (sarcasm) was me trying to move more into the bus so people can come in by moving what I thought was a man’s shoulder, but ended up being his very wet armpit. I wanted to gag. The ticket collector really wanted his money as he started yelling at us to move out of the way. “ Sit, Sit!!”, he yelled at Priya and I to take the chair in the front. Neither of us did and when he sat down I said, “oh, but you’ll sit!” He smirked and said, “Well, I offered you the chair…” Priya looked and me and said, “Shut up before he kicks us off the bus.” The bus began moving and it was a show for the ticket collector as he watched us sway to and fro hitting others in the face with our arms. I almost fell completely backwards because my whole arm depended on one bar I held on to. Worst of all, we couldn’t see where we were, so for all we knew, we had already passed Kadod. Finally, the bus comes to a halt and I already knew I needed to throw up. The ticket collector yelled “KADOD” and Priya and I jumped off with our stomachs sorely dragging behind us.