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Holy Moley, we're alive!!! Unfortunately I'm quite serious about that - over the last 2 days I thought I may be food for the donkeys...
We decided not to go trekking because there was some bad weather in Leh and if we wanted to wait it out it may have been over a week. So we decided the smart thing was to get a bus from Leh to Manali. Smart? It doesn't seem like it... I didn't want to get the local, public bus (for 2 days) so we forked out a tad more dosh and got a 'Delux' bus. What a mistake!!!
The first day we were delayed by 3 hours due to rocks on the road, then the drivers assistant asked each of us (25 tourists) for 50 Rupees each, saying that if we didn't then the Indian Military would get us in trouble. Luckily there were a few seasoned travellers who told him to go to hell because he just wanted to pocket the money... then we saw him drinking a bottle of clear liquid and getting more and more pissed by the second. At a stop one of the passengers told a local who then told the police and we then saw the police kicking him... it seemed to have no effect though. The driver was trying to make up for lost time, so was driving fast and crazy on the tiny curvey roads... We finally got to the camping ground at about 9pm. They charged us about $15AUD for the night to sleep in a tent - freezing!!! They were horrible people and the amount was supposed to include breakfast which was in fact an egg on 2 peices of stale bread. Most people didn't eat the breakfast, and those who wanted more were refused. Then the bus wouldn't start and we all had to push it, then flag down a passing truck to try to use their battery... when that didn't work they put petrol on a stick with rags and lit it. We had no idea what they were doing, but they were putting fire right on the engine... and it worked (after 2 hours), apparently the air was too cold in the Himalayas (who woulda thought?). After about 4 hours of driving without a stop we got a flat tyre. In fact we got 3 flat tyres. So waiting for another 3 hours, we got to know our fellow passengers quite well. In fact there were 7 Aussies on the bus which was fun. Mendo's happy about that break-down because some bike-riders came along who were Catalans. I have no idea how 50-60 something year old men can ride for 20 hours uphill in the Himalayas and then stop to have a Cigarette with Mendo! Hilarious! Anyway since the bus of course didn't have any useable spares the drivers hitched a ride to the next town with the tyres to get them fixed. We were left with the co-driver who was nursing his hang-over and ended up just sleeping and then waking up to throw-up. Anyway after this we went to the next town to have lunch and a well deserved beer where they tried to change another tyre. Even then local men from the village were saying that the drivers were crazy!
So then we were saying that nothing else could go wrong except maybe running out of petrol (luckily this did not happen). The driver was trying to make up for lost time so on the extremely windey, bad, thin roads of the Himalayas was going very very fast. I don't know how, but I fell asleep but woke to a big commotion. Mendo said he had been scared for the last half hour because the driver was going faster and faster. The driver had tried to do a tight turn but didn't make it. He was on the edge of the cliff with all of us inside. He tried to reverse but the weight of the bus and the rocks underneath us just made us slip more. He stopped just in time and we demanded to get out. Once half of us were out he kept trying, seemingly not caring that our lives were in danger (seriously, I'm not being a drama queen). Once we were all out they asked us to stand at the front to push the bus - the drunk co-driver stood alone, all of us telling him that he's going to kill himself. The driver tried again to reverse the bus once we put big boulders under the wheels so that it couldn't go forward. Failed again and was teetering on the edge. We demanded again to get our luggage off the bus. Some brave people went in the bus to retrieve our bags. We then decided that we didn't want to hang around to watch the bus fall off the edge, so we put our bags on our backs at midnight and walked for 9km's. Along the way some trucks picked some people up. Exhausted, we were picked up by the bus again after 3 hours. I have no idea how they got the bus back, but the crazy people did. Even more crazy, 5 of us left over got back on the bus. Luckily it was a fairly simple straight-forward road for half an hour and we arrived in Manali at about 3:30am... MANIACS!!!
We ran into a fellow survivor this morning and she said that she was picked up by a truck. When the bus was going again it tried to get it's passengers back and the drunk co-driver threatened the truck driver and tried to fight him for the girl passenger. She said the truck driver got a big stick and ran after the co-driver and beat him with it...!
So here we are in Manali, recovering. I don't know what the story reads like, but it was really scarey and horrible. Probably the first of many not-so-nice bus trips, but I'm sure it's character building!
C'est la vie!!!
UPDATE: After running into a fellow 'survivor' from the bus trip, it seems all the bus employees from that trip have been sacked and the police are investigating laying charges against them. Is this Indian Karma?
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