I took an auto rickshaw to the bus station. The driver asked for 100 rupees and I asked for the meter. I refused to go unless he started the meter and we did go. Final price: 50 rupees. Gives you a good idea how much drivers try to cheat you when not using a meter.
Bus tickets in Karnataka were really nice. After boarding the bus, the conductor goes around and you tell him where you are going, he would type something into his handheld device, it would print out a receipt showing the from and to cities in the local language and English, plus the distance and the price. Here in Maharashtra, they just punch a few meaningless holes into a piece of paper and give it to you.
After five hours, my next stop was Nasik. After trying the first hotel suggestion in the book (it was full), I found a pretty nice hotel nearby. Later I went out for a walk and you could tell this was an old city, a lot of old buildings on the streets and it looked a bit like Europe.
A group of students got interested in me and started following me around. Everyone was asking my name, asking for a photo, getting into the camera. Later, a student taller than me didn’t say a word, but grabbed onto my camera lens and started pulling on it. I was trying to figure out why he’s doing this. I manage to get his fingers off my camera and walk away and he pulls the handle on my backpack. I keep walking, more and more students are gathering, I seem to be walking near the entrance of a school. I feel my backpack getting pulled back again by the big student who is following me. He seems to be a bully and was getting me angry. I was thinking am I in high school again having to deal with these things? I wasn’t, so I next time he grabbed by backpack, I pushed him back into the crowd of students. Then he pushed me into a car. I was thinking, wow, I’m getting into a real fight on the streets of India. Finally this was the real India I was expecting! After another push by me, people were joining into stop him and I managed to walk away.
I didn’t really do too much more this day. Just went to my hotel and prepared for another long trip tomorrow.