Well, lots it seems!
Strike 2 – As we left Varanasi, the inability to find 4th gear in the bus and the never-ending grinding of gears became more and more frequently heard over the horn… Then we started to slow down even further as 3rd gear stopped working… By the time we got off the bus, it was maybe going 20km/hr?.. The 50 km from Varanasi took just under 3 hours….
After another chai, and another failed attempt to get internet reception to contact Evan, we found out that the bigger waterfall was a 5km walk away down a dirt track to the other side of the chai stall. Of course it was! I mean, who needs signs anyway? It makes perfect sense that the chai lady had presumed we wanted to see the small, barely flowing waterfall, and not the big, apparently impressive one! Feeling hot, hungry and exhausted we decided to not walk the 10km return, and instead sat by the road waiting for the next bus back.
And there they stood.. staring at the axel and waiting for it to magically fix itself for about 1 and a half hours.. In 37 C heat..
At one point our bus tried to turn around. Atleast that's what we think it was trying to do. It failed either way and also ended up across the road blocking other traffic. The bus driver didn’t appear concerned.
Suddenly, a tow truck appeared and with it, everyone ran back to their trucks and buses, started their engines and started jostling for poll position, to be the first vehicle to pass the truck and get going again.. Which meant that on both sides of the trucks, vehicles were trying to overtake the other vehicles on the wrong side of the road. So even after the truck was moved, nothing could get through at all! It was like a Mexican standoff of the automobile kind.