Monday, June 05, 2006
June 4th: Delhi to Manali, the jeep ride from hell
At around 7 PM last night Katie & I boarded our Toyota Qualis (or whatever) to get to Manali. The schedule was that we would arrive at around 8ish and have the day to tool around town here. No problem. The only downside is that it's harder to sleep on a jeep.
Our driver, Darminder, was Punjabi. He had the unenviable task of driving all night, and with Indian driving being crazy as it is, the addition of darkness and crappy roads doesn't help matters at all. The driver likes Punjabi music, which is very repetitive, shrill, and makes you want to superglue your ears shut. Horrible.
At around 1:30 AM, Katie was sleeping in the back and I was trying to stay awake in the front seat. The driver (whose name escapes me) asked politely that one of us stay awake with him, otherwise none of us get to Manali. I was scheduled to be up until 2:00 AM. We're driving along right near the border of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Suddenly I hear THUNK followed by repetitive thunk-thunk-thunk from the area of the left rear wheel. Driver says "puncture" which is evidently the Hindi word for "puncture". Crap.
We get out and change the tire. Not a big deal. Driverman gets all worried, though, and decides it's critical to find a place to repair the flat immediately - and this is in the middle of nowhere, in India, late at night. Fuck. I convince him that it's not essential, given that we have what looks like a perfectly good spare. It just needs some air, and we get it.
Well, the driver knew more than I did. We drive along a bit more, he gets more and more nervous. He starts yammering "big problem" and "not good" and "horrible night" and things like that. It appears that his spare is.... not really good at holding air. We're now in a town very close to the Himachal/Haryana border when he gets out to show me the tire, now lower in air and hissing. This is when I realize that this shit is no fun at all. Katie gets up to look. The decision is made to stay: we'll sleep in the jeep.
I should point out a few things about this location:
I spent the next 5 hours or so attemping to sleep in the front passenger seat, contorted into a pretzel, while Katie was looking rather comfortable in the back seat. There were three bodies in a small space. The windows are rolled up (although by this point the mosquiots that were inside earlier are either gone or dead). The place is stuffy. Hot. Horrible. I got out a few times to breathe air, and the difference is unbelievable - although sleeping with windows open is totally out of the question.
The bottom line is that I got roughly an hour of sleep distributed into 5-10 minute catnaps. Of the last four nights, I have slept soundly... once.
In the morning, I had a good look at the punctured wheel and the spare, as they were both being fixed. In Canada, these wheels would both be considered garbage - in fact, the blowout on the "real" wheel is unserviceable in Canada since we use tubeless tires. However, in India they use tubes and the hole in the tube was actually quite small. The tube and tire were patched, no problem. The spare, also, had tubes -and also had some nails stuck in the tread, and a leaky valve, and looks like some pretty severe cracking. Again, I don't understand how one can use such a tire at all, but it was fixed and away we went.
We finally got to Manali at around 3:00 PM. Manali is a town overrun with Indian tourist kitsch and Israeli ex-army types looking for pot. Both pot and kitschy souveniers are in plentiful supply, I understand. The nice thing is that this place is situated at around 1900m, and it's quite cool here. It's a welcome relief from the scorching heat and humidity of Delhi.
Tomorrow we leave for Keylong, by way of the Rohtang Pass, which is supposed to be a place where Indian tourists go to throw snowballs at each other. Beyond the Rohtang Pass is Keylong, Darcha, and the trek. I hear there is internet access in Keylong, so I'll try to put up an update from there if time permits. If not, the next update might not be for quite a while.
Our driver, Darminder, was Punjabi. He had the unenviable task of driving all night, and with Indian driving being crazy as it is, the addition of darkness and crappy roads doesn't help matters at all. The driver likes Punjabi music, which is very repetitive, shrill, and makes you want to superglue your ears shut. Horrible.
At around 1:30 AM, Katie was sleeping in the back and I was trying to stay awake in the front seat. The driver (whose name escapes me) asked politely that one of us stay awake with him, otherwise none of us get to Manali. I was scheduled to be up until 2:00 AM. We're driving along right near the border of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Suddenly I hear THUNK followed by repetitive thunk-thunk-thunk from the area of the left rear wheel. Driver says "puncture" which is evidently the Hindi word for "puncture". Crap.
We get out and change the tire. Not a big deal. Driverman gets all worried, though, and decides it's critical to find a place to repair the flat immediately - and this is in the middle of nowhere, in India, late at night. Fuck. I convince him that it's not essential, given that we have what looks like a perfectly good spare. It just needs some air, and we get it.
Well, the driver knew more than I did. We drive along a bit more, he gets more and more nervous. He starts yammering "big problem" and "not good" and "horrible night" and things like that. It appears that his spare is.... not really good at holding air. We're now in a town very close to the Himachal/Haryana border when he gets out to show me the tire, now lower in air and hissing. This is when I realize that this shit is no fun at all. Katie gets up to look. The decision is made to stay: we'll sleep in the jeep.
I should point out a few things about this location:
- The most distinctive feature of the town is a truck stranded in the middle of the main road, on blocks, with its rear axle also on the road and the differential in pieces all around.
- Everyone is asleep, but there are two places within spitting distance that can repair a flat - if only their staff were present.
- This is India, a malarial area, and none of us are taking antimalarials (because their side effects involve dreams about Hannibal Lecter, or worse). Malaria-carrying mosquitos only bite at night. It is now 2 AM.
I spent the next 5 hours or so attemping to sleep in the front passenger seat, contorted into a pretzel, while Katie was looking rather comfortable in the back seat. There were three bodies in a small space. The windows are rolled up (although by this point the mosquiots that were inside earlier are either gone or dead). The place is stuffy. Hot. Horrible. I got out a few times to breathe air, and the difference is unbelievable - although sleeping with windows open is totally out of the question.
The bottom line is that I got roughly an hour of sleep distributed into 5-10 minute catnaps. Of the last four nights, I have slept soundly... once.
In the morning, I had a good look at the punctured wheel and the spare, as they were both being fixed. In Canada, these wheels would both be considered garbage - in fact, the blowout on the "real" wheel is unserviceable in Canada since we use tubeless tires. However, in India they use tubes and the hole in the tube was actually quite small. The tube and tire were patched, no problem. The spare, also, had tubes -and also had some nails stuck in the tread, and a leaky valve, and looks like some pretty severe cracking. Again, I don't understand how one can use such a tire at all, but it was fixed and away we went.
We finally got to Manali at around 3:00 PM. Manali is a town overrun with Indian tourist kitsch and Israeli ex-army types looking for pot. Both pot and kitschy souveniers are in plentiful supply, I understand. The nice thing is that this place is situated at around 1900m, and it's quite cool here. It's a welcome relief from the scorching heat and humidity of Delhi.
Tomorrow we leave for Keylong, by way of the Rohtang Pass, which is supposed to be a place where Indian tourists go to throw snowballs at each other. Beyond the Rohtang Pass is Keylong, Darcha, and the trek. I hear there is internet access in Keylong, so I'll try to put up an update from there if time permits. If not, the next update might not be for quite a while.
# posted by Alex Perel @ 7:31 AM 
