The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round (Nov 2)

Today we decided to head back to Manali. It's been a nice rest but I don't know if I can eat another parantha. We've been relaxing and recuperating long enough and we've decided it's time to move on.

We got up and Brad started the fire, made tea, toast, and home fries. It may sound silly but it was the most delicious breakfast ever!! I think the family finds it quite humorous that Brad cooks and does laundry. It's not that the men don't help out, it's just not their normal role. (Are we inadvertently introducing women's lib?) I think they also feel a bit sorry for us - in their eyes we are poor since we have no land and no children.

Keshau missed Diwali as he was delayed in Malana but he returned home this morning. He said he would arrange a taxi to pick us up at 1:00 and take us into Jari to catch the bus.
From Jari we take the bus to Bhuntar, then a bus to Kulu, then another bus to Manali. We had decided to take the local state run bus since it should only take about 4 hours and it was the cheapest way to go.

The family all came up to the guest house at 12:30 with some lunch for us and to wish us our final goodbye's. The cab arrived, we did all our goodbye's with promises to send pictures and we were off again. We arrived in Jari fifteen minutes later and caught the local bus. It was bumpy!!

The bus was fairly empty so we had the back bench to ourselves and could keep our bags between us (I didn't want to have to load them on the roof - they'd get bounced off!) When we pulled into Bhuntar, we found out that we didn't have to try and change buses again... our bus was continuing on to Kulu - Bonus!!

With state buses there are lots of stops. It seems to be like hailing a cab - if you see one you just stick out your arm and it stops. It's quite the milk run with constant on and off traffic.

When we arrived in Kulu, we pulled into a fairly large, bustling bus station. There were buses everywhere. None of the signs that were in English indicated Manali as a destination so we went to the booking counter. The man came out of the office and pointed at a yellow bus that looked like it was getting ready to depart. We hustled across the parking lot, Brad confirmed with the driver that he was indeed going to Manali and we hopped on. This bus was quite full. An older gentleman got up to let me sit in the back seat and we stashed our bags underneath the seats. A little more squishing and maneuvering and Brad managed to sit as well. We were off again on more twisty, turny, bumpy mountain roads.

About 1/2 way there we stopped in a place called Patikuhl. There were some road side vendors, we were a bit hungry, and it looked like we'd be stopped for a few minutes so Brad hopped off and grabbed us some most excellent pakoras to snack on. They were actually the best pakoras we'd had so far!

Back on the bus and a short while later we arrived back in Manali - in the end it took just about 4 hours by bus. The bus cost us only 108 rupees while the cab to Jari took 150! We loaded on our packs and headed up the road. Since we'd been here before, we'd already scoped out where we wanted to stay and how to get there so we could easily refuse the rickshaw offers.

The Mayflower hotel is straight up the road from the downtown area about 1/2 km or so. It seemed closer when we didn't have our packs on but it was good to be walking after a long bus ride. The hotel is pretty high end compared to what we have been staying in - it has an in room water heater (called a geyser), TV with satellite and a space heater! Luxury!! The price was high compared to what we'd been budgeting to spend but we decided to splurge and scope out cheaper places tomorrow.

We were hungry so we wandered back into town to the place we ate the first time we hit town. The tandoori chicken was excellent. We tried some quick emails but didn't feel like spending too much time typing (sorry guys!)
Back up the hill and time for sleep...