All characters are voting-age products of the author's imagination.
Many thanks to Maryb2831 for editing this.
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If someone asks how a crowded bus smells, the answer is simple: obnoxious. It's a mix of smoke, body odor, the smell of grease, and dust; if someone is lucky enough, a fading aroma of perfume is added to the mix. But the smell of sweat from soaked clothes dominates them all. I was so soaked in sweat that I couldn't tell that the thin cotton shorts that I had on were blended with my skin to become one.
I gasped for air while being pushed by the force of other passengers, looking to find a comfortable standing room at the back of the bus and looking here and there for a bit of opening. But there was none. The bus was crammed, and when the pushing and shoving settled, I stood beside my sister Isla in the rear middle of the bus. I sighed, looking around, and all I could see was the crowd, the heads of passengers, which were ever-increasing with each stop. I tried to accept that from four a.m. to sometime around six or seven a.m., I had no choice but to deal with it.
"We could have taken the late bus." I frowned as Isla looked up at me.
"Hey... watch behind you..." The man behind me yelled, making me realize that moving the backpack on my back caused him discomfort, especially when the top of the backpack was almost at his chin high.
"Sorry!" I apologized without making an effort to look back.
Isla giggled, gazing at me as I grumbled once more, and then she leaned forward and looked over my shoulder to see who was complaining.
"You almost murdered the poor guy with your backpack." Isla sneered. "Now, if I remember right, it was the 'Mr. Archeologist' who planned this trip." Her smile was wry as she gazed up at my face.
"Whose idea was it to take the 4 am bus? I told you this is going to be a sardine can ride. We should have taken the night bus or an evening one." I groaned.
"Chill out, dude! You know why we took the early bus... You'll appreciate it once we get there early rather than midday or later when it is fuming hot and humid." Isla said sternly yet casually. "I thought you were Mr. Indiana Jones wannabe, not G.I. Joe in an armed vehicle like your friend George." She chuckled.
Another stop. I didn't see anyone getting off the bus, but the conductor yelled to the crowd, asking them to move back to allow more people onboard. People clung to the handle even more after seeing how many were still hanging from the bus doors. How many more can fit in this bus designed for 60 or so? At least a good two hundred were onboard already. I was happy to hear someone mention that it was the last stop before Agra, which is still almost two hours away. I looked out the window to see sporadic streetlights cutting through the thick darkness as my thoughts led to six weeks of backpacking in a foreign country with my sister. Memories flashed as the headlights of the bus cut through the night.
It had been my dream to tour across a country with archeological interest, and I have saved every cent I could to make my dream a reality since I was sixteen. My best buddy, George, was with me all along, but things quickly changed when he enlisted in the army instead of pursuing our shared dream. My sister Isla knew our plans, and when I told her that George pulled out but I was going ahead with my plans anyway, she quickly asked if she could join. I was stunned. I love and adore my sister, and we have always had an excellent relationship. However, I doubt Isla would be a perfect travel companion to rough it out in a foreign country.
I tried my best to discourage her from going along with me, but the more I tried, the more she became interested in making the journey with me. Both Mom and Dad asked her to consider signing up with a tour company if she was serious about traveling, considering her age and gender, but Isla thought the trip, as I had planned, was more adventurous than taking a tour.
"I am sure you know there won't be all the luxuries there, right? I'll spend nights at cheap hostels and hotels and eat very light." I tried to dissuade Isla but to no avail.
"Yes, brother dear!" Isla chuckled, letting me know that she was ready to rough it out.
"If you join me, you cannot treat me like your nerdy brother, you know?" I added it as a condition to ensure she wouldn't get on my case for any reason.
"You got it. Likewise, you are not my guardian; I can do whatever I like. Deal?" she leaned forward to hug me.
After several more days of discussing and trying to discourage her from joining me, I finally gave up. The parents tried to reason with me, saying, "It is better to Isla than to travel alone in a strange country." Ultimately, it was one eighteen-year-old getting ready for college, and his college dropout, nearing twenty-year-old sister, was making the journey. We flew to New Delhi and spent a few days with an old friend of our Dad's, and then we were off to wander the land of mystique.
I was disappointed that things between us turned out to be a little different than what I had expected in the first week and what my sister agreed to before we started our journey. At first, Isla began to irritate me when she stopped at every single boutique, browsing through stuff and wasting my valuable time when I wanted to see sites of archaeological value. Then, a few things emerged that we hadn't initially given any thought to, like sleeping arrangements in a small room with a single bed, what to eat, and when to leave the room. Isla always thought that being a girl and my elder sister, she should always have a bed I could live with while I slept on the floor. But wasting too much time every morning to get ready was not. However, she often hand-washed my clothes and hung them in the room to dry.
