It was time to leave Jaipur.

Actually, I'd overstayed. The party I'd been to wasn't going to be bettered, and I'd had my fill of sightseeing, and free chai, albeit temporarily. Besides, the pollution was burning my throat and I was tiring, slightly, of my feet constantly looking like I'd been down a coal mine.

Incidentally, Suni's "girls" turned out to be Suni's "girl", and she was as overtly flirtatious as she was attractive. But I was the perfect gentleman. Naturally. In any case, I didn't particularly feel like being abandoned at a club five miles out of town…

I'd booked a sleeper compartment on a night bus to Jodhpur (the westernmost part of my trip), and before boarding I chatted to a hotel doorman. As you do. He immediately took it upon himself to warn me about "bad people". Here lies the dilemma, in India. Everyone warns you to be on your guard. I've lost count how many times I've been told "don't trust anyone". The problem is by warning you of this, people are inherently suggesting they themselves are trustworthy. So, perhaps, people choose to trust nobody rather than trust everybody; neither approach is particularly healthy. Even my semi-toothless hotel manager said "…be careful, Jaipur very cheating city, everyone want your money".

Whether this was his succinct way of admitting he was overcharging me, I don't know, but the irony wasn't lost on me.

I digress. The night bus. Well, the "sleeper compartment" must be the most sarcastically-named concept in the history of travel. The minute I climbed in, it occured to me that it would be a perfect fit for me, if it was my coffin. (A reassuring thought.) My head was an inch from one end, and my feet an inch from the other. Both sides consisted of sliding glass windows, one opening into the aisle, the other on to the road, which made me feel like an exhibit in a particularly poor transport museum. Both sides were a couple of inches from my shoulders, and being glass, made it uncomfortably hot, even at ten o'clock at night. Opening the road-side window didn't help much either, because along with ventilation it brought in billowing dust. And the noise from constant horn-blowing.

I enviously cursed the passenger I could hear snoring further down the bus, and empathised wholeheartedly with the crying baby opposite me.

I reached my hotel in Jodhpur at six o'clock in the morning, and went straight to bed.