Woke up at 4 a.m. and got on the bus to discover it was standing-room only. Thanks to Jim for buying us reserved seats. We kicked a guy out of them and he had to get off with all the other people standing up. It'd suck to be those people, they have to come back tomorrow again at 4 a.m. if they want a seat, I guess.
2.5 hours into the trip we hit the snowline! It's beautiful here
Sorry, I know that joke is really old. But it was old when I started it, that's why I did it in the first place, so I will continue:
One thing this trip has made me realize is that I should start playing shows every night. It's all I love, always has been. I need to start working to get gigs everywhere I can once I return.
I can't explain how crazy this bus ride is - a 20 foot bus with no suspension, driving up a one-lane dirt path on top of the Himalayas, with ice melting into the road, while cars pass us. The turns are so sharp that most drivers in the US would've killed us many times by now. I can hear the gas tank dying but it restarts every time. I already posted this but it's the only video I have of how shaky this experience is
Loop that for 7 hours, while looking at people going up and down mountains, and you have some idea of what that was like, if you remember to pause for herds of goats every so often:
After a half-hour pause for one bulldozer to, very slowly, move rocks in and out of the road, we got going and drove a while longer to reach Keylong, in Lahaul. They have an excellent sign that I wish were posted all over the US:
Also, they apparently hate jazz
Jim and I fought about whether to take the first guest house we could find. I wanted to, he didn't. I had to shit the entire trip and his fear of constriction made him unable to decide quickly, so he said "let's have a tea first," which actually did make me want to hit him like in this Kids in the Hall sketch:
I finally shit in a wet and gross public toilet in a guest house where I wanted us to stay, but Jim said we should leave and look for a better deal. I know Jim's problem was that he needed to feel comfortable in a new place before making any decisions, but the result was we were cruel to the poor guest house owner, by using his toilet under the auspices of staying there, and then not actually taking the place.
Then we walked to another guest house to find it was (unsurprisingly) the same price, then another, same thing. Sick of Jim's indecisiveness, I told the owner we'd pay him 400 rupees, instead of the 500 he'd asked. He exasperatedly said "400????" and I said "We just looked at 3 other rooms exactly like this in better locations for the same price." He said "OK, 400 then." Bargaining really is that easy, here.
Here is the view from in front of the hotel:
The place is fine, but has the worst point of access of anywhere I've ever been:
That's not actually a bad photo, we literally have to walk through construction (visible to the left) and hop across nothing to get to the steep dirt path to the building.
After getting lost for 30 min, 20 m from our the guest house, more diarrhea. My asshole is raw now. Using water instead of toilet paper finally makes sense to me. I took the azithromycin or whatever the lady prescribed me for traveller's diarrhea, for the first time. I don't know if it actually worked.
Jim and I went to the bus station to find out the pass to Leh is closed due to rain, which has caused landslides. The ticket seller said "We sent two buses there, they didn't come back. It should be open again soon." I didn't ask if the people in the buses were okay.
Since we didn't know what else to do, we bought rum and looked all over for Cokes, but apparently there are such things as Coke towns and Pepsi towns, and Pepsi has a complete monopoly here, even down to the only bottled water available most places is Aquafina.
My first drunk experience outside the US was really nice, Jim and I just sat in our room, telling stories about the only topic men discuss when alone: Women. I told him if he were a woman we'd have had sex by now. He said that was pretty gross. I laughed. We'd have made good roommates. I guess we are, right now, actually.
The weather in the Himalayas changes so fast! In 3 hours it went from too hot to too windy/duststorms, to rain, to really pleasant pre-sunset. Also, this:
2.5 hours into the trip we hit the snowline! It's beautiful here
Sorry, I know that joke is really old. But it was old when I started it, that's why I did it in the first place, so I will continue:
One thing this trip has made me realize is that I should start playing shows every night. It's all I love, always has been. I need to start working to get gigs everywhere I can once I return.
I can't explain how crazy this bus ride is - a 20 foot bus with no suspension, driving up a one-lane dirt path on top of the Himalayas, with ice melting into the road, while cars pass us. The turns are so sharp that most drivers in the US would've killed us many times by now. I can hear the gas tank dying but it restarts every time. I already posted this but it's the only video I have of how shaky this experience is
Loop that for 7 hours, while looking at people going up and down mountains, and you have some idea of what that was like, if you remember to pause for herds of goats every so often:
After a half-hour pause for one bulldozer to, very slowly, move rocks in and out of the road, we got going and drove a while longer to reach Keylong, in Lahaul. They have an excellent sign that I wish were posted all over the US:
Also, they apparently hate jazz
Jim and I fought about whether to take the first guest house we could find. I wanted to, he didn't. I had to shit the entire trip and his fear of constriction made him unable to decide quickly, so he said "let's have a tea first," which actually did make me want to hit him like in this Kids in the Hall sketch:
I finally shit in a wet and gross public toilet in a guest house where I wanted us to stay, but Jim said we should leave and look for a better deal. I know Jim's problem was that he needed to feel comfortable in a new place before making any decisions, but the result was we were cruel to the poor guest house owner, by using his toilet under the auspices of staying there, and then not actually taking the place.
Then we walked to another guest house to find it was (unsurprisingly) the same price, then another, same thing. Sick of Jim's indecisiveness, I told the owner we'd pay him 400 rupees, instead of the 500 he'd asked. He exasperatedly said "400????" and I said "We just looked at 3 other rooms exactly like this in better locations for the same price." He said "OK, 400 then." Bargaining really is that easy, here.
Here is the view from in front of the hotel:
The place is fine, but has the worst point of access of anywhere I've ever been:
That's not actually a bad photo, we literally have to walk through construction (visible to the left) and hop across nothing to get to the steep dirt path to the building.
After getting lost for 30 min, 20 m from our the guest house, more diarrhea. My asshole is raw now. Using water instead of toilet paper finally makes sense to me. I took the azithromycin or whatever the lady prescribed me for traveller's diarrhea, for the first time. I don't know if it actually worked.
Jim and I went to the bus station to find out the pass to Leh is closed due to rain, which has caused landslides. The ticket seller said "We sent two buses there, they didn't come back. It should be open again soon." I didn't ask if the people in the buses were okay.
Since we didn't know what else to do, we bought rum and looked all over for Cokes, but apparently there are such things as Coke towns and Pepsi towns, and Pepsi has a complete monopoly here, even down to the only bottled water available most places is Aquafina.
My first drunk experience outside the US was really nice, Jim and I just sat in our room, telling stories about the only topic men discuss when alone: Women. I told him if he were a woman we'd have had sex by now. He said that was pretty gross. I laughed. We'd have made good roommates. I guess we are, right now, actually.
The weather in the Himalayas changes so fast! In 3 hours it went from too hot to too windy/duststorms, to rain, to really pleasant pre-sunset. Also, this:
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