Tonight we took the 11pm bus from Bangalore to Madikeri in the green, hilly Western Ghats in the Coorg district (“we” being Pierre, Etienne and Massa (colleagues and francophones) and me.) It’s a 6 hour overnight drive in a sleeper coach so before we left I REQUIRED a proper dinner. Impossible and thus devastating to me, a person who requires AT LEAST three square meals in a day. Instead we had to rush to the bus stop to file onto one bus which would take us to the another bus that would go onto Madikeri (do not look for logic or reason here.)
It was my first time taking a sleeper bus. Instead of seats, people and things are neatly organized into long compartments you close yourself into with electric green polyester curtains. The interior of the bus was the most radical shade of green spangly formica. It’s clean, there is a mattress with a sheet, everyone has their own pillow and fleece blanket. People board, you hear their voices and smell their smells while you look at the window and watch the smears of lights rush past. We shut ourselves into the curtained cubby holes, rested our heads against the emerald naugahyde and tried to get a bit of rest before the Coorg, difficult with the questionable quality (absence) of shocks or the rough road. 