People taking the bus from Leh to Manali were told to show up on the Main Bazaar of Leh at midnight. The bus was to take off at 1 AM.
When I arrived a fight had already errupted. A European couple was having it with India.
"You try to tell me I didn't pay?" the young man with an akward yelled.
"Do you think in home country I care for 1000 rupees? That is 15 euros. That is nothing. Why would I try to cheat you?"
Her girlfriend went on:
"I hate this country! Every day someone cheats us. Every day we are fooled. Everyone is a liar and thief. And now this!"
The two were volunteer workers, who'd come to India with good intentions. This time they truely were being cheated. They had payed 1600 rupees (25 euros) each for the ride. But they had paid it to two different guys in the same agency, first paying a thousand as a reservation fee and then later the rest. And now their receipt only said they'd paid 2200 rs and a thousand rupees were missing. Strangely the men were both there to see the bus leave. More strangely the men admitted each having received the money. But as the couple only had a receipt for 2200 that was not going to be enough for the ticket collector, a third man from a different agency.
There was pushing. The girl, who worked for a volunteer organisation for female empowerment, tried to hold back her enraged boyfriend. Insults were flying from both sides. The Indians looked hurt.
"Europeans fight for every rupee even if it is not much money for them", one of the men said and was right. Many of us do, often only out of principle. It is humiliating to pay too much.
I did not see how it ended. My bus left, and the two tried to get on a minibus that was waiting behind the bus.
Five minutes into the ride I was about to fall asleep on the surpsingly comfy seat.
That was until the driver turned on the music. I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It was Hindi pop at it's loudest - almost like standing next to the loudspeakers at a rock festival.
The Indians didn't seem to mind. They were all falling asleep. For 15 minutes I tried to think it was funny. Then I had enough. I voiced my anger to the driver. But he wouldn't hear me, would he. Miraculously the young man already asleep next to me woke up and understood what I wanted. He went up to the driver.
The pop was turned down. I congratulated myself on silencing an Indian bus.
The silence lasted for about 10 minutes. That's probably how long the driver thought it would take for the party crashing stiff Wessie to fall asleep.
I tried yelling but it was again of no use. But to my surpise the sweet boy who by now was drewling against my shoulder woke up again and heroically went up to the driver.
Silence. Finally. On the next stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere the other Wessies thanked me for my persistance. I wondered why they hadn't said a thing. Did they think it was the Indian's right to ride in a bus louder than a disco? Was I wrong to try to make the ride bearable? Or were they just wimps? I don't know.
I woke up at sunrise to see that we were driving off road. We'd reached the Moray Plains at the altitude of 4500 meters. At what seemed like a short distance there was a curious looking mountain. We were driving towards it. Driving. Driving. The moon like plateau went on forever. After about an hour we actually got close to the mountain. A crater surrounded it.
That's when the man sitting in front of me got sick. With the rush of strenght that upcoming vomit gives one he tore open the window and did what he had to do.
I tried to cover myself with the window curtain and waited for the man to close the window. But he didn't. It was below zero degrees outside but his sickness was stubborn.
For the next five hours I kept closing the window until he'd open it again for his session.
Every now and then we stopped at the tented camps by the roadside to get some chai and noodles. No toilets anywhere. Nothing to go behind. The ride was starting to remind me more and more of a rock festival.
At around 5 o'clock we had a flat tyre. By then we had been travelling for 16 hours.
Reading was impossible in the bumpy bus. For a while we watched a Hindi movie in which a chubby chick wearing a miniskirt and a revealing top was robbing fat men with the aid of two tall helpers who were dressed up as rap stars. I couldn't tell if the boy next to me, who was awake for change, thought the girl was hot or not. I just knew that I laughed at different scenes than he did. At the end of the film the other helper, holding a pink umbrella, danced with a young girl. I'm sure I was not hallucinating.
The end of the film was the end of entertainment. It got dark and cold again.
That's when the lady sitting in front of me got sick. The same theatre I'd experienced in the morning began at fresh. She however managed to vomit on the window pane and made sure I was not going to touch the window again in order to close it. I chose to freeze.
Finally, at 10.30 PM we reached Manali. We had been driving for 21,5 hours.
The next day I woke up with a cold.
