Dharamsala - McLeod Gang

I am currently located at 1770m above sea level, home of the Dalai Lama, and what I like to call little Tibet. It was no easy task to get here, and so the story goes...

after contemplating the night before wheather to head towards Shimla or Dharamsala, I decided to head to Shimla, so I packed my bags and wickered away towards the main auto-rikshaw station across the bridge, Ram Jula. I had to go towards Haridwar, the main town from where buses and trains go from, and try to catch a train which apparently was all booked or catch a bus if possible, otherwise stay the night there and take it from there. But at the auto-rikshaw station, I met a Belgium lady who was apparently heading towards Dharamsala that same day, and because a part of me was still contemplating Dharamsala, I changed my plans that minute and decided to go towards Dharamsala. She had said that she would take the local government bus up north, a 13 hour ride on hard benches with non reclining chairs, usually packed full with people. I was energetic and wanted to give the local way of traveling a try, somthing I would regret a few hours down the road.


We got a good deal on the shared auto-rikshaw to Haridwar, 30 rupees (rs), ca 5kr, which would eventually get packed with people on the way. A tiresum 60 min ride in a noisy three wheeler with a lawn mower engine. The pollution on the streets of India is crazy, not to mention the dirt coming out of these grass cutters. Using a cloth as a filter and a hat as a second filter, I still felt the dirt and grit enter my lungs and sting my nose. I tried to keep my mind off it by looking at the nature around, the small mountains and the occasional rivers, mostly dried up. We arrived at the main bus stop and before going to the ticket booth, we had a bite to eat at a local street vendor, some potatoe filled bread and some spicy colliflower and chilli potatoes. This would probably be another fault, as it gave me a loose stomach later on the trip.

We walked over to the ticket booth and found out that one of the buses had just left at 1400, we had arrived 8 min too late. So we had to wait until 1630 for the next bus, we purchased the tickets at 310 rs each, ca 55kr for a 800km ride. Prices have gone up, and are rising. The guide book states that it should cost 250rs, and that was just 2007. The Station where all the buses depart from is not a nice waiting place. It's filty, flies, mud and cow dung everywhere, not to mention the smell of urine that desipates from the walls and floats through the air giving you the impression that you're standing in a huge toilet. Well, I did help out with the stench by giving my little contribution to keep the walls moist hehe. We had a cup of chai (tea with milk and loads of sugar) at the local stand (I figured what the hell, I'm traveling local, so I'll try the local tea), and that killed about 30min of the 2.5 hours of waiting we had. My travel companion then came up with a brilliant idea of going to an internet cafe to kill time, and I agreed, heck, anything to get out of the giant toilet right. So off we went, looking for a nearby cafe, but the only one we found was in a courtyard, with only one computer available to surf on. So, we decided to share, she got to use it first for half an hour, and I would use it for the second half. So, when it was my turn, yepp, the internet died, and we had to wait another 30 min before I could get online for only 5min or so. It really didn't matter since waiting here was much better than waiting at the bus terminal.

Finally, time to go to the bus, I didn't really know what to expect, the longest local bus ride I took was about 1 hour, and it wasn't that bad. On the otherhand, it wasn't crowded either and so you could use two or three chairs. I wouldn't know how it would be to be squeezed into a tiny seat with no leg room and hard seats for 13 hours. I was about to find out though.

Before getting on to the bus, the co-driver (in india, you have one driver, and one person, I call him the co-driver, who takes care of the money transactions and he's the one that yells out the stops, at least sometimes), tells us to put the bags on the roof. We were expecting someone to come and climb the ladder to the roof of the bus and tie down our bags. And so we stood there, and after 5min of standing and no one showing up, we came to the conclusion that we have to do it ourselves. Up the ladder we went, bags on our backs, and we started to hook our bags to the side rails, there were no buckles are anything to tie it down with, so thank heaven for the rope I had brought with me from Sweden. I dug it out of my pack, and was ready to tie our bags down when my travel partner, Mariane, found a metal roof box we could put our bags into - thank goodness for that! At least now we were half sure that our things wouldn't fall off when the bus hit some gruesome bumps. We stuffed our bags in there, I had a bit of a problem putting mine in, luckily I didn't have a bigger bag cause it wouldn't fit. There was no lock on the box, so I started to cut some rope to tie it, again gracefully thankful for having my multitool with me. While I was in the middle of tieing, I started to hear the driver yell something in hindi, and the engine started, and the bus started to move while I was still on the roof top, I looked down at the driver and yelled back, "5 min" as it wasn't yet 1630. After all, this is India and things are never on time right...guess not though...I hurried to cut some rope and start tieing the box, as the bus started to roll down the street, stressed, but trying to keep my cool to tie it properly, I managed, and hurried down the roof. Once inside the bus, I was able to relax a bit.

The ticket agent had given us a good seat, as it was only meant for ladies...heck, I could pass as a lady for a few hours to sit comfortbly (trust me though, it wasn't comfortable anyway). The initial hour was no problem, as I had good company. But the fear of not being able to stop at reststops when needed made me nervous, and this caused me to limit my water intake to reduce my bathroom needs. The noise on the streets were amazing, in the sense that it was really really noisy. The pollution reaks through the windows and cuts you as you inhale all the dangerous fumes. One of the worst parts of the local bus is the bus horn. It is unbelievably loud. So loud that it defeans you even when you close your ears. And the driver is constantly, and I mean constantly using it all the time. Every time he passes a car, bicycle, pedestrian, motorcycle, well, anything, he would honk. By the end of the trip, you were ready to slap him silly. At around 5 hours, the bus stopped for a dinner break, around 10 min. First thing - run to the bathroom. Apparently my stomach had become loose, and I am assuming it was the street food we had at Haridwar before boarding the bus that gave me this as I had been very careful the day before. Because of this, I decided not to eat anything at all during the bus ride, so I would avoid any unpleasant accidents. I bought a bottle of coke and emptied it so that I could use it as an emergency pee bottle on the road, better have one than nothing right. We boarded again, and after a few hours, I was feeling nasueated, along with the stomach and lack of leg room, and lack of water. Great huh.
The bus would stop every now and then and pick up passengers, mostly in the cities, which in my opinion all looked alike. There was one point where this guy wanted to get off the bus, and he had lots of boxes on the roof, so he got off the bus, and one person climbed the roof and started to throw boxes down while the bus started to move. I could see the guy yelling as he was running to keep up with the bus and the boxes being thrown down. I couldn't believe my eyes, I was thinking poor man, all his boxes must be crushed. I started to think about our bags, and decided that when we get off, I'm going to sprint to the back of the bus, climb the roof my self and unload my bag. After reaching the halfway point, I was feeling regret as I did not choose the more comfortable deluxe bus, which costs only a few hundred more. I couldn't sleep, i was feeling sick, my stomach was loose, and my butt was acheing to glory. But what can you do, you could only wait, and deal with, as I had no other choice.
As the night got colder as we started to rise in altitude, I put on all my clothes I had with me, which was only an extra sweater. Heck, it was better than nothing as it started to get real cold outside and on the bus (the bus driver had the window open the whole time), and you don't really want to complain to the driver as he's holding your life along with the other 30-40 people's lives in his hands. If anything, you want to make sure he doesn't fall asleep once we reach the mountaneous roads. These roads were not fun to ascend. Turning left to right every five seconds, and having nothing to hold on to on the bus, you would slide all the time. It almost felt as if I was on a boat, with the waves swinging me back and forth.

Eventually we arrived. 0530. It was early, I had not slept one bit, and my butt was sore. I had survived my first 13 hour local bus ride, a butt cracking, stomach churning, foul smelling ride from hell. None the less, I was here, but we were not finished yet, as we arrived to Dharamsala and we had to get to McLeod Gang, which is located ca4km up hill, which makes for a 10km car ride. Wanting to save money, we waited for the bus, which was supposed to arrive at 0735. Another crazy wait. It was cold, but I was able to dig out more clothes as I had my bag with me. I put on my long johns, and took out my blanket. I wrapped myself in a cacoon and waited for time to pass, unable to fall a sleep, I just waited.

Finally, the first bus arrived and there were loads of people on the bus. I squeezed my way in and was able to stand sturdy, ok, half sturdy while the small old slow bus struggled to ascend the steep inclination of the mountain. After a half hour, we arrived. My travel mate pointed me in the right direction to get a cheap accomodation and I headed my way. She has been here countless amounts of time, so she had some good advice to give. Tired and hungry, I headed for the first hotel, and managed to get a room at least for a day or two, enough time to hunt for better accomodations. I entered my room and rehydrated best as I could, and gobbled a banana as I threw my self on my bed. Rest, a much needed pass time...