Leaving for Manali, What Had We Done?
The bus is just a metal cage on wheels, no matter how many flowers and buddhas the driver has stuck to the dashboard. Vertiginous drops to our left all the way, and we squeeze past oncoming traffic by millimeters. Pedestrians, who of course walk on the road, manage to scramble out of our way. The ubiquitous Indian stray cow even manages to get its hide on the verge after some liberal horn honking by the driver.
All the time the rain lashes down. Little rivers have have formed down each side of the road and they flow torridly under the weight of their ever increasing waters. Here and there a landslide has brought tons of rock and earth down across the road. The bare minimum has been done to clear the way and we bounce brutally over the remaining scree. I am grateful that we at least have cautious driver. He and the ticket collector both have an Indian Freddie Mercury thing going on, but they could look like Lady Gaga for all I care as they continue to pilot us safely along the road... ... ...
8hrs, currently going on 9 and we're still 50k out. When some less cautious drivers banged each other up on the road, we got stuck for over an hour waiting for the machines to be disentangled. To compensate, our driver has begun to accelerate around bends like a maniac. Indeed, maybe everybody is now late for Indian X Factor. The delay of the crash means that all cars are now hell for leather around the twisty roads with constant horn-honking and, from where I'm sitting, some eye-watering near misses at-speed. Ill as Mhairi is, she has shut her eyes long ago to get some rest. Indeed, it's time to close my eyes and dream of the slow-moving, congested roads of my homeland. Ah, for the traffic of England...
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