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After Dharamsala we took one of those wonderful Indian night buses to Manali. Along the way, the driver stopped for food (he was the only one eating, as everyone else had logically eaten before the 20:30 bus) at a roadside restaurant where there were so many flying insects that all of the pot covers were drowning in dead bugs.

We arrived very tired to Manali, which is a place that we weren’t that much looking forward to visiting as we had heard that it would be swarming with tourists, many of which were here to sample the famous Manali charas which is harvested from fields of naturally growing marijuana plants. As happens quite often, what we expected and what was actually the case were two different things. Manali is a typical hill station made awful by overcrowding, noise, cars, over-development and obnoxious tourists. However, Old Manali, where most of the backpackers head is beautiful. There are pockets of guest houses and cafes scattered along a mountainside, overlooking a valley of orchards. There are wild looking pine forests and the old town still has more farm houses than guest houses. The people are very different from normal Indians. They have quite pale skin, dress completely different, and are very amiable. Most of them seemed to be farmers. We saw quite a few women carrying in bundles of grain that they would beat by hand in the front yards of their fantastic stone and timber houses. The architecture in Manali was also very traditional, unlike the ugly concrete block buildings in most other towns. Even the town’s temple was wooden and had the feel of an Alpine log cabin.

We spent a couple of days walking in the hills, enjoying the silence and fresh air, and I caught my one and only Euro 2008 match. Croatia 2 – Germany 1.

Our reason for being in Manali was to catch the bus northwards on to Ladakh on the famous Manali – Leh road. The road is famous because it goes through some of the most inhospitable landscapes on earth. It’s quite a feat of engineering on the part of the Indian army that crosses deserts and rivers. There are parts where the snow has been shovelled out by hand so that the road seems to pass between enormous walls of snow. There are passes of over 5000 metres, including Taglang La, the world’s second highest motorable pass at 5328m. The road is only open for the summer, leaving Leh closed up except for air passengers for a good part of the year.

We opted for the “deluxe” tourist bus that was meant to take 2 days to reach Leh. We woke up on the first morning at around 4:30 to get the bus for 6:00. the first part of the trip took us towards Rohtang La, where many Indian tourists make a day trip to get their first glimpse of snow. As is the norm with most tourist destinations popular with Indians, the road up was incredibly clogged with traffic. It took us the best part of 6 hours to make it about 40km. If I leave with one memory of India it will be of white taxi-jeeps, belching out black exhaust and crammed sardine-like with Indians. The stupid thing is that all of the vehicles, even when parked for 30 minutes, would be idling. And as tune-ups don’t seem to happen very often here, even the newest cars are puffing black smoke. We thought we would die of carbon monoxide poisoning on the side of a mountain. Only in India could this happen.

The road up to the pass was lined with hundreds, if not thousands of shops renting out 1980’s neon winter gear for the Indian tourists to suit up with in preparation for the “extreme” cold up ahead. In reality the temperature was probably around 20C on the road, and perhaps 10C at the top. Winter boots and snow-suits were definitely overkill. After crawling up the single lane road filled with two lanes of cars, jeeps, buses and trucks, we finally made it to the pass. We nearly pissed ourselves laughing to see what all the fuss was about. The snow was blackened by the throngs of vehicles spewing out exhaust, plus the dirt of spring. There were muddy, wind-blown tent restaurants with dirty plastic chairs and tables. A few scruffy ponies and yaks were being led in circles with Indian tourists atop them. Some makeshift sleds were being pushed down the snowy/muddy mountainside. It was hilarious. But, as is the case with most Indian tourists, the photo in the costume in front of the temple/mountain/foreigner is more important than the experience and they all looked decidedly pleased with their day out in the snow.

We were pretty pleased to leave the convoy of cars behind and to finally start making some progress. Our driver, in what would be a recurring theme over the next couple of days, was very reluctant to stop for food or pee breaks, instead choosing to drive like every other person, as fast as he could, riding the tail of trucks in front of him and constantly honking his horn, overtaking vehicles in the most dangerous places imaginable. Bear in mind that this road isn’t really a road as most people know roads. It was tarmacked in a few places but the vast majority of the “road” was nothing more than an incredibly rough dirt track. There were boulders in the road, enormous holes, 500m drop-offs, broken down vehicles, mud, snow and speeding vehicles. This is a road literally carved into the mountainside. It’s more of a donkey trail than a road, and definitely not one fit for anything less than a 4×4 or a beastly looking TATA truck or bus. (TATA is India’s biggest company making everything from 90% of the vehicles to tea, jewellery, steel, air conditioners, and insurance plus about a million other things. They’ve also recently purchased Land Rover and Jaguar as well as Corus, the former British Steel.)

Due to the morning’s traffic problem, we didn’t make it anywhere near our planned evening’s stop. At one point it had taken us 10 hours to go 71 km. We spent the first night in a tiny one room tent restaurant/hotel/shop/family home where we crammed, 20 of us or so into about 12 beds. The couples shared single beds, and yes, we still had to pay by the person. But, the family that ran the restaurant was very pleasant, and made us some good food and we had a great night’s sleep. It was by now that we noticed another change in the people. By now most people were looking more Tibetan in appearance, speaking Tibetan or Ladakhi instead of Hindi and were Buddhist instead of Hindu. Of course the clothing was now completely different as well. Instead of saris, the women wore long, warm looking layered outfits. Following the trend of other Buddhist peoples, they were also very smiley and laughed a lot. As is normally one’s first reaction when faced with what appears to be a very uncomfortable situation, we let out a few internal groans. However, seeing that this family of four shared 2 beds between them and literally lived in a tent made us think twice about how bad the situation really was. The older daughter, perhaps 12 years old, who was sleeping when we arrived, hopped out of bed, got dressed and soon set about taking orders from everyone while her father passed out blankets and the mother cooked food. The smallest daughter had the privilege of staying in bed.

The next morning we were woken up at 3:15, and we set off in the dark. We made one breakfast stop at 9:00 but then at around 12:00 the bus stopped. Once again there was a long convoy of vehicles backed up. By now there were only a few jeeps and dozens of trucks hauling diesel or supplies to the army bases tucked away in the valleys. It didn’t look like we were going anywhere soon, so we walked up ahead to check things out. There was another river to cross, but this time it was deep enough to be causing problems. One truck was stuck in the middle and a couple of jeeps were unable to cross either. The truck drivers looked like they were in no hurry, while the jeeps kept speeding to the front of the queue and trying their luck, unsuccessfully, to cross the river. We were assured by everyone that the army would soon be around to sort out the problem within the next couple of hours and to simply hang tight. The army did arrive, and there was much arm waving and pointing and paper rustling, but for the next few hours nothing was done. Finally at around 17:00, two big army trucks loaded with soldiers arrived. They started scouting out the situation. The line of trucks started firing up their engines, as they did once in while when it looked as if things had improved. The valley was soon choking in a cloud of smoke. I asked one Indian man why all cars in his country emitted such clouds of smoke, and he, perfectly seriously said that the smoke was not from exhaust, but was the army sending a smoke signal to indicate that there was a problem. O-K.

There was one enterprising man that tried to convince everyone that we could divert the raging torrent of a river so that we could make it shallow enough to cross. It was a rather pointless idea, but at least he was trying. A few of us got the idea to use the army trucks, which lifted like dump trucks to fill the river with stones in order to reduce the depth of the water. Unfortunately, at around that time the army, having crossed the river, decided to bugger off. They weren’t there to help at all. They were simply going the other way. Then of course all of the Indians said that, “well no, of course they weren’t here to help. It’s not their duty.” Bloody hell. People seem to have this belief in the idea that things will work themselves out. The westerners however, wanted to do something about the problem. We asked around for shovels, which no one had. Then we got bored and we too started trying to divert the river, which as I said earlier was pretty stupid. Finally it started to get too dark to do much, so we resigned ourselves to a cold, hungry night in the bus. We hadn’t eaten since the morning and were drinking river water. The truck drivers weren’t too worried and they started cooking themselves food inside their trucks. I saw flames nearly up to the ceilings of the cabs. In diesel trucks.

We dug out our warm clothing from our backpacks and got ready for bed. I should probably mention that we were at 4800 metres. Many people in our bus were suffering from altitude sickness, with headaches, nausea and even vomiting. And 4800 metres in the Himalayas in the spring is really cold. Needless to say we didn’t have the best of nights. It was freezing and the bus was very uncomfortable. Even we were getting headaches and every movement during the night made our heads feel like exploding.

Finally, the next morning at around 5:30, the trucks started firing up and we crept forward. The river had gone down to less than half the previous day’s level and the trucks were starting to force their way across. Finally we too were able to pass. Needless to say, we were very happy to be out of there. It’s not that the place was a bad one to pass the night. All of the trip up to then was through stunning scenery. Our night was spent in a canyon with high desert-like mountains all around us. It was beautiful. But we were cold, hungry, thirsty and wanted to get the hell out of there. Only about 10km down the mountain was a tent camp where we ate instant noodles for breakfast and sucked down what tasted like the best tea in the world.

From there, the road passed a large military base where most of the trucks were stopping and the way got even more barren. But at the same time more beautiful. We passed through vast flat plateaus with the mountains on view in all directions. There were nomads herding sheep and yaks. The road, when it wasn’t a goat trail snaking along the mountainside was really just a couple of tracks heading off across the plain. The scenery was absolutely amazing.

Finally we climbed up to the highest pass at something like 5100 metres where we stopped for 10 minutes for tea and photos. From there we started descending and only had one real delay where the army was widening the road and we had to wait for a few minutes. Finally, after asking our uncommunicative driver to stop for food, he was kind enough to let us have a lunch break at around 14:00. From there the road was easy going for the last 100 km or so to Leh. As we neared Leh, the landscape became more rugged and dry. The mountains were dotted with crumbling 1000 year old Buddhist stuppas and the highest cliffs held ancient monasteries. It was very surreal. Like something out of a fantasy novel about magic and cave hermits. Finally, at around 17:00, and only a day behind schedule, we arrived in Leh, the capital of the ancient, formerly off-limits kingdom of Ladakh. The Tibetans refer to Ladakh as something like the holy land. It’s a dream for many of them to come here. It’s an ancient land that is largely unchanged since thousands of years. Buddhism is the dominant culture here and the people are mainly of Ladakhi or Tibetan origin. It’s as if we had left India and arrived in some strange, hidden land. But more on that next time.

The trip to Leh was wonderful and horrific at the same time. Much like India. So many beautiful things to see. You just have to suffer to get to them.

By the way, here are some PHOTOS of our adventure.

So, we’re here now. Tomorrow we are off trekking for 10 days or so to Zanskar. We’re happy, safe and well-fed.

Len y Michaela