riding a bus...

Remember how I said that taking the night bus wasn't my first choice? Well it turns out that it was quite an adventure, and while I didn't exactly get much sleep it makes for a good story...
So...we get to the bus station on Friday night at 7:50 for an 8 p.m. bus because traffic was bad - I mean it is always bad here but it was extra crazy that night - so I'm all freaking out that we will miss the bus, but I forgot...this is India...nothing happens on time. We find the area our bus is leaving from and ask "is this the bus to Dharmsala" and the guy grunts yes. 10 minutes later we discover that it was, in fact, not the bus, the actual bus was 2 buses over. Again more unnecessary concern we would miss it. We get there and see everyone standing outside the bus. After a few minutes I overhear a conversation where I understand one word in Hindi which is "broken" so I ask my friend (who speaks Hindi) to find out whats going on.
Turns out the AC on our "Deluxe AC bus" is broken. Yikes! So a bunch of the men planning to ride went to see what was going on. No point in us women going, they would have ignored us anyway.
So we waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually I was ready to go AC or not. First they looked for another bus, there wasn't one.
Then they demanded a refund but the bus people said no, you will go.
Then they couldn't find the driver. When they did find the driver he said he wouldn't drive because he would suffocate (which is silly because his window opens).
Finally at 10 we got on the bus. It was hot, no doubt, but not as bad as you would think. We drove for 5 minutes then stopped. The driver got out for 20 minutes, suddenly came back and we were off! It actually wasn't that uncomfortable temp wise and by the middle of the night it was pretty cool with the small hatches on top of the bus opened up for air. And since safety here is always a non-concern they also left the door wide open to let the breeze in (don't worry...I was far enough back that I was safe). And...they even refunded us the "AC" amount of the ticket.
The ride wasn't exactly comfortable; the average height of Indians is 5'5" and the seats seemed to be designed for someone 5'3" max so our knees hurt a bit (I'm 5'7", she's 5'9") but we got there.
How much did this experience cost? $7. Seriously. $100 less than the flight and we were able to take a quick nap at the hotel when we got there so all in all actually okay.
But wait...there's more! On Monday we go to the airport to check in and find our flight has been cancelled so we immediately get seats on the flight the next day to be safe (there is one flight a day - its a tiny airport) and then we ran back to the bus station to see if we can get on the bus back because we both have lots of work to get back to. A very unhelpful man says the only bus is the "standard" which is not nice and I won't even go on for a 2 minute ride much less a 10 hour one. Luckily we were determined and found that there was a new bus service starting that night; air conditioned with super nice seats, as in reclines and has footrests. So we climb on this bus, pay $16 this time and sit in relative comfort on our way back...with a few other people from our cancelled flight. We might even get the money from our flight back because we told them in time we wouldn't travel the next day. We got back to Delhi at 5 a.m. (when I must say I was thrilled to have my own driver because I'm adventurous, but negotiating a rickshaw at 5 a.m. just doesn't seem like the smartest thing in the world).
So, long story short. Night buses in India range from quite nice to quite interesting, but even the nice ones are pretty darn cheap so really, why not if that is the best option?