2. Day " Why a semi sleeper is called a semi sleeper"

Our next station in the mid-Himalayas, Manali, was to be reached by a 16 hours bus ride. There are 3 possible bus types to get there. From our point of view the luxury class would have been perfect. We have been told to take the highest class available - the semi sleeper from Volvo. So we did.

Finding the bus was somewhat of an adventure, the platform (if you could call it one) was nowehere close to the one we had been told by the various officials, but our Indian family, that had adopted us during our search took us under their wings.

There a several reasons as to why the coach we took was called a semi sleeper.

For one, the bollywood movies being shown during the drive where pretty hard, if not impossible to ignore, so were the constant fights of the back row on who had the best mobile phone ringtone. We didn't appreciate either of them.

This was also another lesson on driving in India. Moving further up into the mountains, the roads became more narrow and were winding up the hills. The driver was blowing the horn to alert other cars that he was going overtake (usually in a curve) or to alert them that we were approaching - a pretty common habit for drivers in India. This resulted in each and every driver blowing their horn almost constantly.

16 hours passed more or less slowly with several breaks in Indian Disneyland (somewhere along the beginning of the route), a welcome breakfast stop and other not so welcome stops.

All in all this led us to be semi sleeping and half awake.

Manali, where we have now arrived is a top location for Indian honeymooners, up in the mountains. The bus was full with young couples, who had just married, and - we got the feeling - didn't know each other that well or were to shy to look at one another. This really felt a bit strange to us.

We're staying outside of the main town in Vashisht, a bit further up in the mountains with great views of the valley. We appreciate the change in climate compared to Delhi - temperatures are a lot more bearable.

We'll be trying to add a couple of pics from Delhi - unless the Internet connection keeps breaking down.

We found a bar with a Nepali DJ wearing a German football jersey. If we are still awake at 00:30a.m. then you could join us there for the game!