Taxis, busses, and trains...oh my!

Oh, many of the joys (and often frustrations) of travel revolve around transportation. After a few chaotic days in Pune, we had to escape the land of the taxi and autorickshaw. We traveled by bus to Mahableshwar, in the Western Ghats. At the bus station, all the faded signs are in Hindi, and we haven't a clue where to look for our bus. Every person we asked had a different helpful answer. Tim decided to befriend a snack vendor who promised to let him know when the bus arrived. However, it was already a bit after 10am and that was the departure time listed on the ticket. We questioned a few more people, and were still getting opposing answers. (We would be directed to a bus already waiting, and then the driver would tell us that it wasn't the bus destined for Mahableshwar.) And there was added difficulty in that we stumbled all over the name of the town every time we inquired about the whereabouts of our transport. Eventually, our bus arrived, and several of the folks that we had asked came out and made sure we knew it was our bus. Tim's friend walked past the bus glancing in the windows, making sure he was safely seated...and flashed Tim a huge grin. Now off for a wild ride up through a narrow ribbon of road, leading us up out of the heat and humidity to the modest hill station of Mahableshar.