The father, whose petrol seems to have dried off, frees himself from the chair and has a comedy fight with a fat man who appears to serve no purpose. The sexy girl points out to the hero that the ugly girl is escaping through the desert just as the father defeats the fat man by putting a bucket on his head. The hero, the father and the sexy girl then all sing a song in which the father seems to give his blessing to their marriage. Meanwhile, the ugly girl on the horizon shakes her fist, and says something which can only be a vow of revenge. A few seconds later, just as she is on the point of dying of thirst, she comes across a lonely hut on top of a sand-dune. She knocks on the door and is welcomed by a man who tries to seduce her (in song). She is unimpressed by his advances until she notices that in the corner of the room is a mini-laboratory, containing what appears to be a half-finished nuclear bomb. Together they hatch a plan.
After that, the plot became a bit too difficult to follow. As far as I could tell, in the end the sexy people married each other, the ugly people got blown up, and the fat people ended up with buckets on their head.
Now that’s what I call quality entertainment.
The journey included plenty of stops where everyone got out and drank glasses of tea which was sweeter than Coke, and only marginally less milky than milk. At first it made me gag, but as the trip progressed I gradually got into it as a drink. The secret was to avoid thinking of it as tea. As long as you persuaded yourself that it was a warmed-up soft drink, the taste was O K. And it gave you enough of a sugar rush to restore your will to live after several hours of arse-spanking.
There was only one other Westerner on the bus, and despite the fact that he had the best seat, right at the front, he seemed distinctly miserable. Every time we stopped, he was the first one out of the bus, hitting the ground at a sprint, and dashing off, clutching a loo roll.
Liz struck up a conversation with him at one of the stops, but when I noticed that his shirt was flecked with vomit I decided to steer clear. It turned out that he was Belgian and had blood in his stool, so we both avoided him after that.
We discovered that lunch was included in the price of the ticket when someone plonked a cardboard tray filled with unidentifiable blobs of curry on our laps. I waited for Liz to try each blob before I had a go, but I only really trusted the yellow blob, which I could tell was made of lentils. In one corner was a tub of unidentifiable white stuff which had set into a firmish lump with a smooth surface. The guy on my left saw me poke at it and said, ‘Crrd’.
‘What?’
‘Crrd.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Crrd.’ He took a spoonful. ‘Very good.’
‘Liz, what’s crrd?’
‘It’s that white stuff.’
‘I know, but what is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you going to try it?’
‘Don’t see why not.’
She tasted a large floppy lump.
‘It’s nice. Kind of like yoghurt.’
‘Bloody hell – I’m not touching that.’
‘Please yourself.’
She ate the whole of hers, swearing that it was delicious, but I thought she was mad. After all, yoghurt’s basically off milk, isn’t it? It’s insane to put all that effort into an against-the-odds struggle to avoid eating disease- infested food, and then deliberately shovel rancid dairy products into your mouth. No way.
The rest of the journey took twice as long as I had expected, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that random people kept on appearing out of nowhere and selling bananas and nuts through the window, I would have starved.
By the time we got to Simla, I’d eaten so many bananas that I already had the shits, despite the fact that I’d only eaten two curries so far on the entire trip.
Liz found it hilarious that I’d given myself a bad tummy by avoiding curry, which I took as a symptom of the worsening vibe that seemed to be developing between us. Once, on the bus, I tried to clear the air by venting my anger over the fact that she had invited Jeremy to come with us, but it didn’t really work. She just got all het up, and ranted on about how we didn’t own the bus, and we didn’t own Simla, and it was always nice to travel with a bit of company. I couldn’t help feeling as if this meant that I didn’t count as company any more, which also seemed like a bad sign.
Simla was reasonably nice, and we spent a few days wandering around, looking at each of the sights mentioned in The Book. Even though there were far fewer beggars than in Delhi, and we generally got hassled far less, I still couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I was shit-scared of everyone and everything. Even people who weren’t shouting at us to buy or sell things frightened me. Just that I’m-poor-and-you’re-rich look in their eyes made me feel depressed and guilty.
Worst of all were the kids, who swarmed around you asking what your name was, or for a pen, or sometimes for money. They jumped at you constantly, ambushing you just when you were least expecting it, screaming questions at you, and waving their grubby little fingers towards you in the hope that you’d give them a handshake. The kids were usually so dirty I hated having to touch them, but they’d never go away until you had at least patted them on the head.
Liz seemed to enjoy being mobbed by lice-infested street urchins and often squatted down to talk or play with them, while I hovered at a safe distance. As far as I could tell, she had no understanding whatsoever of the means by which disease is transmitted. Either that or she fancied herself as a Mother Teresa.
My personal space was so perpetually invaded by the children, the salesmen and the general crowds that I realized I either had to give up on the idea of having one, or embark on a nervous breakdown. For the time being, it seemed as if the latter was the easier option, and every morning I woke up feeling mildly sick at the thought that there was only breakfast between my bed and the outside world.
I found myself staring at other travellers, to try and tell whether they were genuinely having a good time or were only pretending. Some of them were quite blatantly having a shit time, but if’I spotted a group who looked happy, I found myself watching them intently and eavesdropping on them, to try and figure out how they could possibly be having fun.
I failed to see how anyone could enjoy being in India. How did they do it? What was wrong with them? Or was I simply weak-willed and over-sensitive? Maybe I’d been right in thinking that I was too much of a coward to deal with the Third World. Perhaps I should have been honest with myself, and spent the money on a month in Benidorm? I decided to try and cheer myself up by sending a couple of postcards home.
