A story of India

"SUPER DELUXE TOURIST BUS - To Manali," the posters had cried out from walls all over Leh, the high-altitude (3500 meters) capital of India's northern region of Ladakh where I had spent 9 magical yet sickly days. My original plan had been to hike out of the region, over the Greater Himalaya range, with two friends I had been travelling with, but due to financial considerations I had decided to cut my visit to India short and so finding a way out of one of the highest and driest inhabited place in the world needed to be found. I had flown in from Delhi, a quick and painless hour and a half, and though I was in a hurry to get back to Delhi all out-going flights were booked solid for weeks so a bus it had to be.

I had had trouble sleeping a few nights that I had been there, a common effect of not having adjusted to being at high-altitude, and unlucky for me the night before I was to leave - with a 5 AM departure time - it happened yet again. A stomach ache that progressively worsened through the night left me lying in insomnial frustration till 3:00 AM or so when I finally drifted off only to be harshly awoken by my alarm at 4:15. Up I got to pack my final belongings and say goodbye to my friends then off I was to the main bazaar where I was to meet the bus.

Onboard and in the seat numbered 25 that my ticket assigned me for only a few minutes, however, I found myself confronted by two Israeli girls one of whom also happened to have a ticket for seat 25. Appealing to the manager of the bus I found out that though I had payed my 900 rupees and been given a ticket, the tour operator I had bought it from had not called in to book me a seat. I was in luck, however, as there was one seat empty. Unfortunately, it was undoubtedly the worst seat on the bus - in the middle of the five seat back-row. Why the worst you may ask? Well, being in the centre means that you don't have a comfortable foot rest as one is positioned at the back of central aisle, thus finding oneself perpetually sliding forward. It also means being unable to lean back as there's no room behind and - enjoying access to fresh air as much as I do on long bus journeys - one is two seats away from the closest open window. But it was all that was available so sit down there I did in trepidation of this ill-omened beginning.

Off we started through the darkened silent city and into the country as the first rays of sun glittered over the surrounding Eastern mountains. An hour and a half later we made our first stop for breakfast before a bridge across the Indus River. My stomach still wasn't feeling very good, but thinking that it might be due to lack of food thus far today I bought a glass of chai with a chapati and curried vegetables to satisfy my then desiring stomach. It didn't help much though and by the time we were on our way again I was feeling even worse. A nauseous stomach combined with general physical exhaustion in a packed bus on what had already been shown to be the windiest and bumpiest road I had ever had the misfortune to find myself on did not do much for my mood; a foul and frustrated individual I certainly was. An hour after setting out, however, the bus again pulled over, the engine was turned off and the driver and assistant ran outside. Not understanding Hindi I didn't know what was going on so after a few minutes of silent confusion I asked my 8 surrounding Indian companions what the deal was. "Something wrong with the engine," they said. We waited for another 20 minutes or so while the drivers tried to fix its, but them having no luck we turned around and headed back where we'd come from much to my pained chagrin at the recognition of this second ill-omen. An hour later we were back in the crossroads where we'd stopped for breakfast to sit for a while. I availed myself of the opportunity for rest and repair in the shade of a road side mud brick shack, but it was not to last long as we were called back on the bus to head even further back towards where we'd come from to meet the replacement bus half-way. And so we did; upon seeing it pulling over to the side of the road to transfer the luggage from the rack on top to our new ride then off again in the proper direction. While I had not known the general condition of the road we were driving I had been aware that it had the distinction of being the second-highest navigable road in the world topping off at a truly frightening 5,359 meters, and so all people and luggage transferred to our new transport we began our long climb up the mountain.

Hours later we were still slowly working our way up a mountain that was proving to live up to the reputation of the Himalayas as the "Roof of the World." The road was quite busy for such an isolated area; mostly populated by oil tanker trucks filling up Leh's supplies for the long winter ahead when the road would become impassible. No two lane well built road was this, however, rather a precarious ledge carved out of the mountain rock with no guard rails and often barely enough space for our bus to even pass by the larger trucks. We were sometimes forced to actually backup - how the driver actually knew where the edge was I have no idea - in order to let other vehicles pass. As we worked our way higher we began to pass those who obviously kept the road open: black faced, rag-covered men hammering by hand rocks into the requisite gravel or slowly stirring in blackened metal trays the steaming oil-grease that would hold it together. Most likely "Untouchables" they were; those who were at the bottom of the barrel in India and Nepal's complicated caste system and therefore largely confined to the hardest and most demeaning of work. Our "TOURIST" emblazoned bus passing by drew looks of mystery, but from another world we certainly must have seemed to them and their most difficult of lives.

The temperature slowly dropped as we climbed and with greater frequency clouds obscured our outside view. Subtle effects of our increasing altitude also became apparent: a dull headache and an increasing dull, dry cough. Finally, in the midst of strong winds and low visibility we crested the pass and pulled over for the necessary picture taking. Something was wrong with my camera unfortunately, but I at least wanted to take advantage of the fresh air however little there might be at that altitude. Only a short while did I stay outside though as the cold and effect of the altitude rapidly discouraged any further time off the bus. And then our descent began.

I had explained how horrible I was feeling to my surrounding companions - 8 men all from South India, all with mushtashes who were travelling together (?) - and one had graciously surrendered his window seat to me. I therefore at least, by this time, had ready access to fresh air (the seemingly best thing for my nauseaous stomach), other than while we passed other vehicles belching out think black smoke, but on we went through the barren lanscape at our as usual incredibly slow speed. Only 480 km it was from Leh to Manali, but two whole days of driving would it take us to make the journey. Though we were supposed to stop where we were to spend the night before night fell, our nearly three hour delay meant that the sun had gone down hours before we pulled to a stop in a darkened encampment. Desperate to get out of the seat I had so painfully sat in for almost four hours - once feeling like I had got whiplashed by the violence of a bump we had hit - I hurried off thinking that this would finally be our sleeping place. It was not to be. Instead it was simply the border between the state of Jammu and Kashmir where we had been and the state of Himachal Pradesh where we were going. Here all 12 non-Indians on the bus were required to have their passport information recorded by the police. The police officer then on duty, however, did not want to then do the work as it was late and he was in the middle of his dinner so we were told to hand over our passports to be retrieved in the morning; a proposal we were extremely reluctant to accept given the nature and legality of this most important of documents. Our frustration nearly boiling an English woman and an Israeli man took the lead in arguing with the supposed officer - he wasn't even wearing a uniform and all we had to go on was his word as to who he was - as to why he couldn't just do his job then and there so that we in our exhausted state could get some much needed sleep. Finally he relented and by the light of the driver's cabin light filled out the the required paperwork.

Only a few kilometres it was to where we were to stay the night though given the darkness and state of the roads meant that it took us nearly 30 minutes more to get there. When I had bought my ticket, an experience that I found was shared with many other of the non-Indians, I had been told that we would spend the night at a guest house in a town, but where we instead found ourselves was little more than a encampment by the side of the road with no electricty and only tents with straw filled mattreses on metal cots. 300 rupees per person the man at first demanded, an outrageous sum for such conditions, and only down to 150 could we seem to bargain. Many on the bus thought the price still too exhorbitant and chose to rather sleep on the bus, though many did not even have adequate blankets or sleeping bags to comfortably spend the night in the barely above freezing temperature. I, while acknowledging the steepness of the price, wanted a bed to sleep in more than anything else and so payed out the fee and was as soon as possible asleep.

The next thing I'm aware of is the bus's horn waking me from my slumbering dreams and voices yelling that it was soon time to leave. Jumping out of the bed I threw on my clothes, packed up my sleeping bag, emptied my aching bladder and made it to my seat only minutes before the bus began the day's journey. Day two had begun.

The roads remained ever precarious and though we maintained our slow pace the possibility of the driver making the slightest of errors that would lead to us tumbling down the enormous cliffs dwelt ever-present in my mind. The sleep had at least seemingly cured me of my sickness and so in a much better mood I faced the still long journey ahead. Though the road did not improve the views that we passed nearly allowed one to forget the constant discomfort. Too many to describe, but two in particular stand out: an enormous limestone canyon, something like a smaller version of the Grand Canyon, with enormous wind-eroded hoodoos hanging over us and an incredible vast wind blown valley through which galloped groups of traders whose ancestors had undoubtedly traversed the same trails for millenia.

The landscape along our drive was incredibly dry at first, and having no moisturizing balm my lips were dry and cracked worse than I had ever before experienced, but as the second day progressed more green could slowly be seen to be evident. As we approached our destination it in fact became positively foggy around us thereby adding yet another complication to our already dangerous drive. Finally, as night fell, we pulled into Manali; I just thankful to have made it there safely. It was only then (probably for the best), however, that I found out some rather disquieting information from some of my fellow travellers. Not only was the road I had just travelled the second highest in the world, but, next to one in Nepal, it also happened to have the distinction of being the second most dangerous in the world. To make matters worse, I found out that the driver had begun the trip on some amount of opium (he claimed that it calmed him down and helped him drive better; an admitted possibility) and had barely slept during the night; instead becoming quite drunk and high on hashish with a number of other foreigners who had decided to stay up all night rather than suffer through an uncomfortable sleep on the bus. To his credit he had shown himself to be an excellent driver and had got us all to where we were supposed to be so I can't really complain. In this case ignorance was far from bliss, but it was certainly far better than being aware of such troubling details. Such is partly what makes India such an ever-interesting country to visit anyways.