This time, its trip to Pathanamthitta to
join a group of like-minded bus enthusiasts heading on a two day bus fanning
trip through some scenic routes in central Kerala, and I was in a quandary
about what bus to take. I had lots of options to take, and all of them were
equally inviting as well. The main confusion was between taking a bus via the
AC road or the one via MC road. After a lot of thoughts, I decided to book on
Bharathi – so called up my good friend DJ
to get a seat. He confirmed one. But things were awry later, and the service
was cancelled for reasons beyond their control. He got me a seat on Shama for
the journey. So I was travelling through MC road!
July
19, 2013
The confirmation about my ticket came only
a couple of hours before I left office. I
was on a university assignment, and there was heavy work all through the day –
it took me some time to settle the work and leave the place. Heavy traffic on
the way meant that I reached home quite late. I had to rush through packing my
bag. My brother was busy with his work, and I had to find an auto – it was
quite late already and it was raining as well. I got a rickshaw from outside my
home – for the first time. The rick guy asked for a fortune – I had no option.
I was dropped outside the Shama office in Madiwala at 1950 – just 10 minutes to
go for my bus. I had to first withdraw money – the ATM played some tricks with
me, and I lost more time. I finally walked into the Shama office at 2000hrs –
exactly at the departure time of the bus. Manoj was all smiles as he wrote a
boarding pass for me, and told that the bus was parked at the “pump”.
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| My bus: KA-01-AA-13 |
It was the oldest bus of Shama for me that
day. I wasn’t very happy at that. I got into the bus, left my bag inside. DJ
was there – we stood outside talking till the driver got in and blowing the
horn. We finally started from pump at 2022hrs – 22 minutes late. We stopped
near Kallada office for a pickup, and we finally left Madiwala at 2029hrs. Like
every Friday, this day was no different – roads were jammed, and we had to wade
through traffic. We passed Silk Board at 2042hrs. Despite being a Friday, we
had about 6 vacant seats – a lot of passengers cancelled their trip due to the
torrential rain in Kerala, while some of them couldn’t make it to Madiwala due
to traffic. We stopped at Electronic City toll gate to pick one passenger
(2057hrs). The bus stopped to pick-up flowers at Attibele (2120/2123hrs). We
picked a few more passengers and some parcels at Hosur (2136/2144hrs).
A recent Tamil movie was played in the bus.
I was feeling hungry, but my food was in the bag on the luggage rack – I
decided to hold on till the bus stopped for dinner. I was expecting the bus to
stop at a good place – but like most buses in the route, we too pulled into
that dreaded Hotel Uthaiyah near Krishnagiri (2226hrs). The cleaner announced a
20 minute break, while the driver switched off the AC, but left the engine
running and went off. I had my dinner sitting in the bus and then went around
for a stroll. The entire parking area has been levelled and asphalted. The
place was much cleaner than it used to be – signs of an improvement? The
attendant was back in exactly 20 minutes – after a few rounds of honking, all
passengers were inside, and we started moving from there at 2251hrs. I always
felt these buses should start from Bangalore around 2030hrs and eliminate this
dinner break.
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| My bus during Dinner at Hotel Utaiyah. |
The movie got over soon after started from
the hotel. I slept off a while after the movie got over. One thing I like of
Shama is the full sized blanket, and fairly sleep-friendly driving. I had a
nice sleep, fairly undisturbed. I vaguely remember a stop at Walayar (it was
around 4AM then). We were in the midst of a traffic block then. I slept off
again – but I remember the bus literally rocking side-to-side. The road is
inexistent. I woke up again around 5.45AM – rather, I was forcefully woken up
by the alarm of my co-passenger. He was sound asleep, while the alarm cried at
the top of its voice waking up the entire bus. It was still dark outside, and I
had no idea of where we were – after some time, I realised that we were yet to
reach Thrissur! We reached Thrissur at 0613hrs! The bus stopped to unload some
parcel. By now all my hopes of an early arrival at Pathanamthitta were dashed –
I was now prepared for a late arrival, but expected to reach by around 11AM –
did that happen?
We left Thrissur at 0616hrs. Instead of
heading to Mannuthy and joining the highway there, the driver preferred to take
the Ollur route and join the highway at Thalore. It took us about 15 minutes to
get on to the highway – but after that, the driver let the machine lose, and he
tried to make up some time. We dropped a couple of passengers at Chalakudy (0648),
and then at Ankamaly (0700hrs). We veered off to MC road from Ankamaly – the road
got narrower and traffic started thickening. We reached Perumbavoor at 0722hrs.
After Perumbavoor, the bus kept stopping every 5-10kms to drop a passenger –
everyone wanted to be dropped outside their homes! We reached Muvattupuzha at
0743hrs. My co-passenger got off, and I had both the seats for me now. This was
my first trip beyond Muvattupuzha on MC Road. I decided to pull up my back, and
watch the road.
The road got even narrower, and we started
going through a ghat kind-of section. The bus swayed left-right throughout the
route. After sometime of swaying, I started feeling sleepy again – I decided to
catch up some sleep again. In the meantime, we reached Koothattukulam
(0818hrs). I slept off after Koothattukulam. I remember passing Kuravilangad
(did not notice timings). I woke up just as we were nearing Ettumanoor. We
dropped some passengers outside the temple (0859hrs) and continued our run.
After Ettumanoor, there was absolutely no road – only stones strewn in puddles
of water anywhere. We waded through the inexistent roads and finally got held
up in heavy traffic block near Nagambadom. We passenger Nagambadom only at
0941hrs – almost an hour from Ettumanoor! We passed Kottayam KSRTC stand at
0943hrs – a couple of passengers got off, and we stated again at 0945hrs. The
bus was more or less empty by now – the number of passengers was in single
digits now.
The bus stopped for a leak break near Chingavanam. There was no road here as well. We
reached Changanassery at 1028hrs – it was just stop-and-go there. We continued
our crawl through bad roads. I never expected such a condition of Kerala SH1. A
part of this road was relaid under KSTP, but the portion I was travelling through
wasn’t – here roads were inexistent. After crawling for about 20 painful
minutes, we reached Thiruvalla (1051hrs). By now the driver had lost all his
patience – he was honking madly, and drove quite rash now. The bus was stopped
at Eraviperoor by a RTO Squad – they ate about 10 minutes. We reached Kumbanad
at 1121hrs. Our next stop was at Kozhencherry – 1132hrs. There a small block after
the town – the road was very narrow, and our troubles were compounded by
wrongly parked vehicles on the road. The driver was very upset – he was
mumbling all the time and kept ranting about the delay. I was finally dropped
at Pathanamthitta at 1202hrs – a good 3 hours after the scheduled arrival time.
All I remember was, I got off the bus, got into an auto there and rushed to the
KSRTC bus station – the rest comes later.
End remarks: The bus, KA-01-AA-13, had
about 6.6 Lakh kms. The bus was delivered sometime in June 2009. Maintenance
was just about average – the AC vent above my seat did not have a regulator –
so it was always on and it kept blowing cold air all the time. The front axle
kept rattling all the time as well. The bus had poor pick-up as well – time for
it to head for a full overhaul. The end-to-end ride took 15h40m. We had a grand
3hr block at Walayar (as informed by the crew and a co-passenger), and that
delayed us heavily. The delay while entering Kerala made things worse for us.
Facilities:
Blankets: Yes
Water Bottle: No
Snacks: No
Ratings:
Maintenance (including cleanliness): 3/5
Punctuality: 2.5/5
Staff Behaviour: 4.5/5
Overall: 3/5
Will I take this service again? I am not a
regular passenger on that route – but if I’d have to travel again, I’d prefer
taking a bus via Alappuzha instead.
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