I'm still alive... Take 3

Yesterday was the most terrifying day of my life. Scarier than a possible LRA intrusion into Uganda. Scarier than the Kampala bombings. Scarier than the Leh mudslide. I actually think I had a pretty good chance of not making it to 22.

I thought the bus ride from Manali to Kaza was scary. But boy, was I in for a shock.

I got on the 4:30am bus to Manali and off we went. When we stopped for breakfast a few hours in, the driver informed us that they were expecting snow. As we resumed our journey, it started to rain a little bit. Rain turned into snow. Snow turned into a snowstorm. As our elevation lowered, snow turned to slush, and we all know that slush is heavy, and these mountains are not very stable. The drive is already scary in itself, with hairpin turns and drops down to the valley floor right next to the road, but when you know that the stones that compose the road on which you're driving, as well as the mountain above, could give way at any moment, it adds a whole new dimension to the drive. Especially when you hear thunder and you're not entirely sure if it's just thunder or if it's a mountain coming down somewhere.
The really scary part started around noon, when we had to periodically stop to move rocks and boulders that had fallen onto the road, and the bus had to carefully maneuver around them if they were too big to be moved. I had a window seat on the side of the bus that was most crowded, meaning the side on which the bus tilted more into the abyss on the unstable road. I pretty much stuck to the man sitting beside me so that I wouldn't have to look out the window. As we bounced about hoping a boulder wouldn't crush the bus or that a wheel wouldn't slip off the road, I turned my phone on – I thought that in case I died, at least my body would have a chance of being traced by the radio waves. It may seem silly now, but that's honestly how scared I was. Maybe I was so scared simply because my nerves are shot from several terrifying experiences in the past 4 months, or maybe because my life was literally in the hands of the bus driver and the whims of over-saturated soil.

At about 3pm, we arrived at Rohtang Pass (which literally means 'pile of corpses' in Tibetan). There we found out that the road to Manali was blocked by a mudslide, and it could take hours or days to clear it up. We all got off the bus and started walking down the mountain, heavy backpacks in tow. I'm so glad there were other tourists on the bus – a Polish guy and his dad, a Spanish girl and an English girl – it was nice to have some mental support :). We walked for a few kilometers down the mountain, which at least was absolutely beautiful so we could take our minds off the actual reason why we had to walk down the mountain, until we found some taxis. Unfortunately, most of them were full of Indian tourists in hideous but hysterical rented fur coats who wanted to go up to the Pass to see snow. We left them in their fake-fur glory and continued on our way. Suddenly, the Polish guy yelled that rocks were falling. I looked up and indeed, boulders were falling down the mountain, straight for us. We ran for cover behind a parked truck, which is not so easy with 15 kg of luggage on your back, and hoped the boulders wouldn't obliterate us. Luckily, they stopped on the road above, about half way between us and the place from where they had started falling. About 45 minutes later, we got to a rest stop, where we could have some tea and food, and waited for a taxi. Two hours later the taxi arrived, informing us that we would have to pay 2000 rupees for the one and a half hour ride down, which is almost as much it costs to go to Spiti Valley itself by taxi! At that point we had no choice, we couldn't walk down the 36km to Manali, and the two girls had to get back to Delhi to catch flights, so off we went. I think we all expected a nice drive down in a warm taxi, bringing us to definite safety after our long day, but the taxi driver was insane and drove like a maniac, sometimes with one hand holding a phone and the other on the gear shift, never mind about the steering wheel! We made it to Manali safely, and I think I will wait around here for a few days for the storm to clear before I go trekking in Parvati Valley.

Ironically, the reason I decided to take the bus back from Kaza to Manali, rather than the other way through the Kinnaur Valley and onto Shimla, was because the latter road is supposedly one of the most dangerous in the country, and I was trying to play it safe. Failure.

Anyway, the trend of this trip is sort of starting to scare me a little bit – 4 months of traveling, 4 scariest moments of my life:
11 June: Rumor on the radio that the LRA has returned to Uganda
11 July: Kampala bombings
6 August: Leh mudslide
13 September: Snowstorm and mudslide at Rohtang Pass

Anyway, if this trip kills me know that I die happy because I'm traveling, discovering the world, and living the dream :)