Level 4 – the unofficial lonelywanderer.com adventures

I am not affiliated with the actual site. But I guess there are some good photography available there to publicly view, albeit a little old.

The usage of lonelywanderer.com this (unofficial) way kind of hit my mind when I realized that it was absolutely pathetic travelling via train to chennai (from calicut) especially during the holiday season with no reservation. Of course I should have done the reservation first a long time ago, but I somehow didn’t. Therefore I was rampantly finding out other means of getting to Chennai. Finally I chose to take the bus. And as most of you may know there are no direct bus services to chennai from calicut.

So yesterday after a bit of asking around learned that the best way to reach chennai was to somehow reach Coimbatore, and from there take either the train/bus. (Again, the former choice was a bad one). But unfortunately the frequency of buses to Coimbatore from Calicut is very rare. If I remember correctly theres only 2 services - in the morning and night. It was somewhere around 2.00 pm when I learned this…

Okay so how do I reach Coimbatore?

One of the state transport drivers told me to take the private bus to Palakkad. There are services to Coimbatore from there regularly from there. So I boarded one such bus. And this was my first journey to that place. Feel asleep most of the way though. I for some reason kept thinking that this bus had to go via Thrissur, Ernakulam, etc. Calicut to Ernakulam is a 5 hr journey. But after a late realization, I figured out that these buses fork at Ramanaatukara; it takes the road from there which goes to the Kozhikkode airport, Malappuram, Perintalmanna, etc.

And thus I finally reached Palakkad at around 7pm. To make it to coimbatore however you had to find the state public transport bus stand. No idea of the frequency of buses to coimbatore from there. Heck, no idea where the state transport bus stand was either…! After a little asking & walking around I finally found the state transport bus stand.

It was around 7.15 pm. The 1st thing I saw when I entered the station was a bus to coimbatore completely packed with people. Okay now when is the next bus? Is it the last one? If not when is the last one?! I went and enquired for the station master. Noticed that even the buses for Tiruvananthapuram (or Trivandrum) were packed, and people waited in queue hoping to catch the next bus for a seat. Looking at the passengers inside I told my self ‘God bless India’. (Even though I know I’ve not seen the worst – God bless India).

The station master was a patient fellow. He answered my queries patiently. So the last bus was at 10pm; buses were frequent – 1 every 10 min; it takes hardly 1h 15m to reach coimbatore. It was only 7.30 pm. So I thought it was best I dine. Had a very quick dinner; quickly visited the public urinal, and then headed towards the queue where people waited for the coimbatore bus.

[This post is intentionally a series…to be continued…as I cannot write everything in one stretch]
[Edit: Click here to read the next]