While traveling through India, I had to take a bus to Udaipur. The bus had two stories: one level of chairs and above was a space about three feet high for passengers to lay during the trip. As I stepped onto the bus, I was not surprised to see people crammed into every spot. A metal barrel with a baby perched on top took up the only aisle space available. It was stiflingly hot with no air-conditioning. I struggled through the crowd and settled into my assigned seat by the window. I was thankful to have the airflow, but would soon be cursing the blessing of the window seat.
The bus began its journey and a nice breeze ruffled my hair back from my face, but it did little to cool down the rest of the bus. With sweat on my brow, I dozed over the next two hours.
I was awoken in the last hour of the journey, when a few drops of liquid began dripping through the open window and splashing onto my face. It was sunny without a cloud in the sky, so I knew it wasn’t rain. Curious, I looked out to find the source of the mysterious substance. I peered up to see a woman hanging out of the window in the upper compartment. She was vomiting onto the side of the bus and it was flowing through my window!
I desperately searched for the handle, to prevent the puke from entering, only to find that the window couldn’t be closed. The woman behind me was now vomiting out of our shared window and the lovely breeze I had enjoyed earlier, was whipping the liquid directly back through and all over me. I don’t know if it was the heat or the smell, but the woman in the seat in front of me joined in on the fun and stuck her head out the window to spew. I was now pathetically using the small sun curtain in a comical attempt to shield against the waterfall of puke coming through my window. I seemed to be a magnet for the rank substance.
By the time the bus pulled up to the station in Udaipur, the women were all sitting calmly in their seats and I assume, felt much better. I however, was now covered head to toe in partially digested Indian food. After stepping off of the bus, I vowed to never take the window seat again.
A Duling
