At about 6:30 this morning, just after I had made it into a euphoric dreamstate, I was awoken by two things. The first: my head slamming six inches into a thankfully-cushioned mattress and the second, a bunch of squeaky Hindi voices barking something down the bus aisleway.

What they said, I’m not sure, but if I were to guess, it would be something along the lines of “Wake up you lazy bastards”, as this was the general demeanor of the wonderful bus staff.

We were headed for Surat, or at least that’s what we thought at about 5:30 this morning when we looked out the window. I remember the time, because it was shortly after my 10th failed space expedition. But when I opened the curtains an hour and a half later at 7a, I caught a glimpse of a highway sign that said “Surat 18Km” with an arrow pointing left.

Now, since my back was facing the front of the bus and I saw the sign passing behind the bus, my logic, even in the early morning, dictated that we were moving away from our destination. In that instant, things just sort of flashed past me as I barely grasped what was going on. G and I were still rubbing the sleep from our eyes, and we both maintained a glazed-over composure as I described what I saw. For about 10 minutes, G and I were left wondering if we had missed our stop, and were caught somewhere between panic and, ‘I’m carsick and I don’t CARE anymore’.

Luckily, about 30 minutes later (far too late for us to have done anything about missing our stop) we made a right-hand turn, followed by another right. We were traveling back in the right direction of our destination. Sometimes it’s just best not to ask questions.

We traveled a long distance on this road, passing many banana and sugar cane fields, before being dropped off at a bus stand. As far as we could tell, we were now in Surat. After quickly verifying the location with a couple fellow passengers, we ran off the bus with luggage in hand to meet the touts.

My annoyance level was still up from the night before with the jerk bus drivers, so dealing with touts now put me in a grumbly and less accepting mood. Unfortunately, Surat isn’t very well described in the 2007 edition of Lonely Planet, and we had absolutely nothing to go on other than what the touts were offering. So G and I had decided that we would say ’200 rupees’ was our max for a hotel. We hoped this would minimize the commission the rickshaw driver would tack onto our bill for bringing in customers. After giving a good majority the “Delhi-Denial”, we found one offering a ‘nice’ hotel at 350 rupees. Since 350 was our real budget, we hopped in and were on our way.

I left G in the rickshaw with the bags and went to check out the guesthouse. I walked up a couple flights of stairs and down a dirty hallway that was pock-marked with cement cubby-holes whose sole purpose, it seems, was to be a place to deposit trash. That should have been an indication that the hotel staff might have missed a memo or two about cleanliness. When the bellhop opened the door, the first glance wasn’t too bad. I walked in.

A squat toilet earned minus 10 since it was usable, but annoying. Even that’s okay because 90% is still an A. But minus 10 for the cleanliness of the bathroom. Minus 10 for a dirty floor. Plus 10 for a TV, even though we probably wouldn’t watch it. Minus infinity times infinity for the rat droppings on one of the pillows. We like rats, but are you kidding me? Is there anything lower than an F-? I left the hotel without saying anything to the reception or the bellhop.

I hopped back in the rickshaw, visibly perturbed, and we moved on to another hotel named “Hotel Decent” (the E was cracked and falling off). At 500 rupees a night, it was a far nicer room, but out of our budget.

We tried a few more hotels after ditching our rickshaw driver (since we thought he was inflating our cost) and walked all over Kingdom Come with our big bags to try to find something better, but they were all full or too expensive. Exhausted, sweaty, and now wholly demoralized on our quest for budget lodging, we settled for “Hotel Decent” with the cracked E, and started walking back to it. Adding insult to injury, our rickshaw driver drove up behind us.

He was smiling smugly as we trudged along with all our bags still in hand, and offered to take us back to his hotel for free. Just wanting it to be over, we got in. The sign for the hotel really said it all. Surat was sure to be a place to sleep and get the hell out of, and that’s what we did. So much for getting “off the beaten track”.