About transport in India

First trip here, first chance to discovers different ways of traveling!

Out of Dehli we took a train to Chandigarh, in Punjab. From what we were told by friends it can be a real mess, but as we were traveling by night everything went on fast and peacefull.
At the beggining there was a nice atmosphere as we met a cool girl from the UK to play cards with; but as the night grew darker people started to fall asleep around us, and at the time i write those words in my roadbook, there a strange feeling of Tim Burton here... a lot of noise comes from all around, the wind comes in from the windows and the fans on the roof, some lights here and there... some police officers, or from the army, anyway they have guns but look cool...

After that relaxing 5h30 pitw in the train, we arrived in Chandigarh ( Punjab) in the middle of the night, just to take a bus to go north. The fast glance of the city we had from the rickshaw told us to leave right away with the first bus! Luckily there was one departure at 4h30. Thought the 45 minutes we spent at the bus station were really fun: it was actually full of activity around, and in the middle of that people were sleeping on the ground. I dont really know how we managed to find the good departure spot but we did... and we left for a three hundrer kilometers bus trip throught the Himalaya to Manali.

As good European guys our first thought was ''300km? 6 hours maximum!''. Obviously some 11 hours later when we were struggling for a little place in the same bus that had got crowded with the hours, we realized we were wrong! During almost 12 hours it was like being in a strange roller coaster: the road is onl large enough for one bus, but who cares?! there's a 1000 m cliff we wont be able to avoid if anyone comes ahead, but who cares?! But i start to understand how they drive: everything relies on a good using of the horn: we thought it would only be in New Dehli! But although we were tired like never before after travelling during 20 straight hours, the sceneries and landscapes we've seen were just amazing: from the deep jungle to the 4000m-summet with snow... and Vashisth a well-earned reward!

Indeed Vashisth is a very peaceful enclave on the mountain slopes, 2km away from Manali, a very ungly place that's mainly used as a stop before the high Himalaya's monts, inhabited with roots people, ravers, cool indians, and very roots people( those who were roots 10 years ago and stayed blocked in India, too high in their mind to ever come back down!). We stayed here a couple of days, just enough to find a shared-taxi to Leh and we're leaving in the night. We're both very excited to take this roads that has some parts above 5000m! But we'll try to come back in one month: this place has this exquisite caracteristic to slow you down and relax at once body and mind! I understand so many people get stuck here many years, like Ganga, who used to be italian, and has been coming here for 14 years!

An other very special moment of this week end: the bath we took in a hindou temple, in natural-hot water from the entrails of the Himalayan Mountains. Around us some Sadhou spent their days in the temple, doing nothing but smoke and wait... nothing more.