The Best Laid Plans...

Tuesday 27th May

- hurray, we leave Ahmedabad!
- the road to Palitana
- the best laid plans...

the benefits of having such a rare luxury as air conditioning are obvious in a country that can get as hot as India can, and we felt those benefits on what was our last night - finally! - in Ahmedabad. checking out at 5am involved waking the porter and night receptionist, who were sleeping by the desk. we had asked to check out earlier in the evening, but they had said it would be fine. we were a little crestfallen to discover that it was still stupidly warm for this hour of the morning. unlike all of the other major cities in which we have stayed, the Ahmedabad streets were virtually deserted, its inhabitants choosing not to take advantage of the relatively cooler temperatures, as they do elsewhere. the porter opened the shuttered grill to the entrance and hailed us an auto.

it was a strange experience speeding through the streets in the dawning light past the homeless and the half-disintegrated home we had seen previously propped up by sandbags. at the station, we managed to find our bus without too much difficulty, even though all of the signs were in Gujarati. we were half an hour early, but the bus was already predominantly boarded. a rough and ready collection or 2 and 3 seat groups separated by an aisle, it had the rigid seats and slightly darkened windows common with all state buses. in keeping with the wide variety of sources from which they seem to originate, the door's driver's area and general layout differ from bus to bus as much as the dilapidated state of their interiors and paintwork. Philippa managed to get a window seat as part of a group of 3, with Edd in the middle.

we'd been on state buses before to Deshnok and Kota, but this would be a longer journey and the main problem with Indian transport - for Edd - was again apparent. the leg room on a state bus is actually fairly decent, but it does not accommodate someone of Edd's altitude in anything other than a bolt upright position. Philippa's rucksack was already under her legs, while Edd's was scrunched very unceremoniously into the small overhead racks, necessitating a vast expenditure of sweat. between us, we were a might uncomfortable, to say the least. Edd had a slight and pleasant man in the adjacent seat, but he was not of a size to cause any additional issues of space. the other people on the bus regarded us with mild curiosity, no more. most of them had taken their chances with seat availability and were paying on board. several had the facial contusions or strange skull dents that confuse and fascinate in equal measure - what happens to make that sort of mark? in a country with so many unfortunate amputees, crippled and ill, it seemed a minor issue with which to deal. how lucky we are in the West.

if we had thought Ahmedabad polluted before, we didn't know the half of it. almost an hour passed before we finally passed out of its ungainly sprawl. new roads were being constructed in many places, accompanied by whole communities living on the displaced earth and waiting aggregates, small fires burning by groups of huddled people next to their few possessions or underneath a makeshift awning. the street communities in Ahmedabad were as extensive as the buildings were ugly and the development unchecked. it looked a particular degree of 'bad' in a way few places have to our eyes in India.

and the city was just the start. as soon as we cleared the outskirts, the factories began. facility followed facility, a continuous grey scar on the planet. convoluted twisting metal pipes and giant, rusting, warehouse-style sheds were the foundation for multiple small chimneys or large, dirty white behemoths, all belching our worryingly coloured smoke, more like escaping gas than the results of burning. we've never seen so many such plants in a row, and this went on for half an hour driving past at average speed. there were few if any dwellings here, and the reason for no photo evidence is that the duration of the bus' passing was marked by exercises in supreme breath holding. inhaling was a problem, as the air was strangled, weak and full of chemicals you could taste and feel. one breathe would go in and a headache would form, sharp and stabbing, as the end of its tendrils groped around the back of your skull. it was a truly horrible experience and went some way to explaining why the city's air was so heavy and uncomfortable.

eventually the factories began to thin out, interspersed with ploughed fields and even a few homes, but they were long gone before breathing in was pleasant again.

our bus, featuring a tired Philippa staring from one of the windows.

the journey itself was quite ordinary, in the best possible way. the bus kept good speed despite frequent stops and one long comfort break where Edd finally got to stretch his legs, a very welcome relief. [Edd: India is too short. I have decided.] the other passengers kept themselves very much to themselves in a vaguely British way and paid us little attention, quite unusual in our Indian experience. the bus was occasionally overloaded but not by many people and never for too long. the sun was even on the other side of the vehicle from us. all in all, it was as comfortable as a five hour plus bus journey can be when you are wedged tightly into a chair by your knees.

colourful transport

away from Ahmedabad's factories, the landscape took on a distinctly Rajasthani feel, with dry earth and dust dotted with brittle shrubbery and occasional trees. as we finally neared Palitana, we could see in the distance a high, spiked mountain. Philippa half-joked that it must be Shatrunjaya, our reason for being on the bus at all. sadly she was correct. the spikes turned out to be temples far away in the distance and the 'hill' we had been expecting looked instead exactly like an extinct volcano. it was a mountain and no mistake, with no vegetation or cover. and we were just going to pop up its 3,750 steps in 2 hours in 40C or more heat? even the photographs of the extraordinary city of Jain temples at the summit were barely a match for the common sense practicalities of whether or not we could manage it, as well as whether or not we should even try, considering Edd's recent heat-related ill-health.

Palitana was a one road town covered in Gujarati scribbles and no English script anywhere - plus ca change. we fought off a few excitable auto-rickshaw drivers who all assumed that we were staying at the Hotel Sumeru, where we had originally booked. the temperature was as to be expected at midday - silly. we didn't see the point in getting a rickshaw a few hundred yards and walked back down the road and through a lot of greetings to find the Sumeru. one man from whom we sought directions nodded and thumbed up the road, Indian style. the hotel was, of course, down a side-road behind him.

the large, lifeless reception felt like the entrance way of an abandoned comprehensive school, heightened by the hotel's wide staircases and slotted, backless steps. the slouching manager said that they were pretty much full now that we were day late, although we made sure to mention that his phone didn't work. if he was full, his tenants must be some of the quietest in India, a country not known for its decorous hotel clientele. he showed us two non-AC rooms that retained the dusty, derelict academy feel and were a little reminiscent of the half-arsed approach of Ahmedabad's Hotel Ajanta. unimpressed, we decided to retrace our steps exactly to the Hotel Shavrak, opposite the bus station, where did at least have an AC room booked.

sweaty and highly uncomfortable, we finally reached the Shavrak and they did at least still have our room. regrettably, the hotel was presented in the same fashion as the Sumeru, only by someone who had left that hotelier's course half-way through. the AC was good and the room was huge, but dirty and unkempt, with the provided towels dirty and moth-eaten, a toilet that did not flush and a shower so weak it was like faeries weeing on you, Philippa surmised. R800 a night, robbery of the most overt kind. they really know that options are limited in Palitana, or at least those hotels we knew of at the time.

half way through check in, Edd noticed something was not right. rushing upstairs in some hurry, illness had hit again! still, there was no way he was going to miss his long-cherished trip up to the mountain of temples. [Edd: sadly, I was very much mistaken - I would not leave the hotel again, or even the room, until we left the town altogether.]

Edd took some medicines and almost immediately had problems as it got to work. violent stomach cramps began and continued for a frankly distressing 7 hours, irrespective of the drugs that he took. doubled up in pain and unable to do anything at all, the afternoon was taking on significant and unwelcome deja vu qualities. while Edd busied himself with getting maudlin and depressed, Philippa was very concerned and anxious - should a doctor be called? our Shatrunjaya plans ebbed away with each stabbing pain. this eventually moved, then continued to do so, and it strongly suggested not classic 'Indian sickness' but a bladder infection. this proved to be the case. how had that been contracted? well, somewhere like India, it's not difficult to guess. India is such a dirty country it's sometimes difficult for a Westerner to comprehend how it is often cited here that Westerners have dirty habits.

Philippa spoke up for both of us when she said that there was no way that she was going to let Edd even attempt Shatrunjaya after the last three days. what rotten luck. Edd had hardly been unwell whatsoever for the entire trip to date, whereas Philippa had had a few bouts of illness, but now illness was keeping Edd from visiting - or at least trying to visit - something he was desperate to experience, only just after preventing us from leaving somewhere we were desperate to get away from. Palitana is a nothing, end of the line town. the only reason it exists is as a base for treks for pilgrims and some tourists to Shatrunjaya. it was a long way to get here and now it felt like it had all been for nothing.

Philippa had heard from the hotel receptionist that we could get to Diu on a 7 hour bus or two, or a 4 hour taxi. the latter would, of course, be quite expensive, but the last few days had got to us to the point where we had had just about enough. Philippa asked him to book us one for tomorrow.

[Edd: while she popped out to buy drinks and snacks, I couldn't even move around until around 7pm. if felt a bit like another whole day had been trashed, and with it the one thing I had most wanted to do in Gujarat.] it would probably be a few days before Edd was strong enough to have even been able to attempt a trip up Shatrunjaya, so maybe it was a good thing that we didn't stagnate in Palitana just to find out, but it didn't feel that way at the time. it felt like a failure.

the hours ticked by, helped by TV and old Charlie Chaplin films on one of the cable channels. tomorrow, we leave a town we've barely even seen and without accomplishing the only reason we came here in the first place. we still had no room arranged in Diu, either. feeling a little miserable and self-pitying, Edd consoled himself by knowing deep down that he wasn't nearly fit or healthy enough to attempt the Shatrunjaya climb, while we both stuck by the clichéd maxim that things could only get better.

edd & philippa