Mandi

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Shimla to Mandi was the next route on the map, which meant another joyous chance to experience the wonders of Indian bus travel....this time fortunately for only half the time...

We had a swift breakfast at the same place as the evening before, with a very captive audience of locals (I am starting to think that everything I do is extremely interesting....the way I eat, the way I drink water, the way I breathe, as I seem to have someone watching me do all of these all the time.....so I'm hoping that people will similarly be amazed at my talents once we get back to Ireland.....) We headed for the bus station and had to wait about an hour for a bus. We had a porter scout us out straight away. He looked like Quasimodo without the hump - huge hands, big head, scruffy beard, dressed in a dirty off-white type of "dress" the men wear here, with long trousers underneath, and ropes draped over his shoulder. He also had the memory of a goldfish, finding us every 15 minutes or so to ask us again where we were going. We insisted on carrying our own bags to the bus but he followed, and when we found we couldn't fit them on the bus with us, he seized his moment to clamber up the bus (on the built-in ladder at the end) and secure them for us. Then we were on our way again. The road this time wound around and around all the way, tho surprisingly there were less locals puking out the window than there had been the day before. The scenery changed again, from pine forests that reminded me of Canada, to gum trees like in Australia. And the temperature rose again, from being pleasant and cool in Shimla, to hot again, as we continued this time further north but down the Kullu Valley. We arrived in the afternoon and located a hotel which we discovered had an amazing restaurant which looked like it had been used as a ballroom in days of the Raj - it was huge, with big old antique tables and chairs, black and white photos of austere men looking at us, and amazing huge hunting guns and swords mounted on the walls. It was all very civilised, until I went back to our room and puked my guts up, and continued to do so regularly for the rest of the night. And so endeth the day...

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