Bus trips and things in Deb's pants

Deb and I made it to Pondicherry (which, as of last October, is now called "Puducherry") after a 16.5 hour train ride, 1 hour bus journey, and 10-minute rickshaw ride. The best part was waiting for the bus, when we got to see a parade for Ganesh's birthday. Will post a photo tomorrow.

The bus trip was ... great. We were on a huge luxury bus, with about 120 other people. It was PACKED. (The fact that I stank after our long train journey did not, however, persuade my fellow passengers to give me a little more breathing room.)

Since the bus was big, the bus had the right of way on the road. Which meant that the driver leaned on the horn the whole time, overtook other, slower-moving vehicles at will (regardless of whether there was something coming the other way), and drove at speeds appropriate for an empty stretch of the I-90 (not a winding, narrow, road filled with bicyclists, motorcycles, pedestrians, rickshaws, cars, trucks, tractors, oxen, and more). We didn't die (though I did have visions of being catapulted out the front window, since I was standing near the front), but I am a little deaf from the horn-blowing.

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As I'm sitting here typing (and Deb's next to me), Deb keeps saying, "I think there's a bug in my pants. It feels like there's an ant or something." At which point she rolls down her pants slightly from the waist and sees something. We're sitting in a coffee shop surrounded by other tourists, and she's pulling down her pants. She keeps rolling. The "ant or something" turns out to be a 3-inch long gecko, which jumps out of her pants and onto the floor. Deb, naturally, screams and knocks over her chair. I start laughing. The poor gecko runs away.