Day 67 (Tues 12 Sep) - Manali
We had a great nights sleep. Jo wanted to have a lie in and watch "Oprah" on TV so Sarb went to have his fix on the internet. Later we had breakfast and spent the rest of the morning on the internet blogging.
We had a final lunch of momos at Chopsticks, said adieu to Manali and then gathered together our stuff and went to find the private bus stand to locate our deluxe coach. En route we spotted an excellent example of colour coordination. Did sting the eyes though.
We found our bus which didn't look that luxurious but the seats were quite comfy. We settled ourselves and the bus left promptly at 3.30pm. We thought this was a good sign but we were wrong. We had just left Manali and we stopped. We thought more passengers were coming on board although it was already pretty full but then we heard someone on the roof. After a while we set off again only to stop again. This time we saw large, heavy boxes being put on the roof. They finally ran out of room on the roof so put some in the aisle - we were not impressed.
After about 20 minutes we continued but stopped at a small garage. Sarb went to see what was going on. Only later, once we got to Dehli, did he tell Jo that a small man was going about the axle with a hammer, as no axle he was sure before or since has been set about. This rather unorthodox manner of running repairs seemed to do the trick as we are still here to tell the tale.
We finally reached Kullu at 6.30pm which meant we had only travelled about 40kms in three hours. This was going to be a long night! Just as we were leaving Kullu we stopped to let some passengers on. A couple of them were Isreali tourists and they were not happy about their seating arrangements and started arguing with the driver and then other passengers. By this time it was 7pm and it was getting dark, we started wondered whether we'd ever get to Dehli.
Eventually the coach got going and we were able to doze off as we travelled down the highlands towards Mandi and then to Chandigarh.
Suddenly Jo woke up as she heard a noise coming from one of the tyres. Sarb was still asleep but fortunately the driver wasn't as he stopped to investigate. Sure enough we had a flat tyre so we had to wait another half an hour for them to change the tyre. When we got going again we both dozed until morning.
We had a final lunch of momos at Chopsticks, said adieu to Manali and then gathered together our stuff and went to find the private bus stand to locate our deluxe coach. En route we spotted an excellent example of colour coordination. Did sting the eyes though.
We found our bus which didn't look that luxurious but the seats were quite comfy. We settled ourselves and the bus left promptly at 3.30pm. We thought this was a good sign but we were wrong. We had just left Manali and we stopped. We thought more passengers were coming on board although it was already pretty full but then we heard someone on the roof. After a while we set off again only to stop again. This time we saw large, heavy boxes being put on the roof. They finally ran out of room on the roof so put some in the aisle - we were not impressed.
After about 20 minutes we continued but stopped at a small garage. Sarb went to see what was going on. Only later, once we got to Dehli, did he tell Jo that a small man was going about the axle with a hammer, as no axle he was sure before or since has been set about. This rather unorthodox manner of running repairs seemed to do the trick as we are still here to tell the tale.
We finally reached Kullu at 6.30pm which meant we had only travelled about 40kms in three hours. This was going to be a long night! Just as we were leaving Kullu we stopped to let some passengers on. A couple of them were Isreali tourists and they were not happy about their seating arrangements and started arguing with the driver and then other passengers. By this time it was 7pm and it was getting dark, we started wondered whether we'd ever get to Dehli.
Eventually the coach got going and we were able to doze off as we travelled down the highlands towards Mandi and then to Chandigarh.
Suddenly Jo woke up as she heard a noise coming from one of the tyres. Sarb was still asleep but fortunately the driver wasn't as he stopped to investigate. Sure enough we had a flat tyre so we had to wait another half an hour for them to change the tyre. When we got going again we both dozed until morning.
posted by Jo and Sarb at
9/12/2006 09:46:00 am
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