Day 29

       Went to bed, in the morning asked if everyone is going to Manali. They said yes, so I decided not to go to stay in Keylong alone to go to the monastery but rather to ride out with them and go to Delhi from Manali. The busride should've been 7 hours but took 10 due to a rockslide on the mountain. We sat motionless on top of that mountain, looking at all the white Jeeps lined up, not moving, with no apparent blockage ahead, for about 2 hours. 

       The ticket booth opened right as we arrived in Keylong, so everyone had to crowd around trying to get tickets. I was the first of us when these German women yelled to Jon that he should get tickets for them too. All of us objected to this strongly, me b/c it was true racial separation making them think this was okay ("we westerners better stick together"!), but of course they were also just trying to cut the line. Jon said yes, though, so when I got to the front and asked for 8 tickets, they yelled over and over to me to cut people. The guy at the window said he only had 7. I said OK give me 6, and figured I'd let those German women get their own tickets. Later, they were mad that I hadn't picked up the one ticket, but I explained I assumed they'd want to go together. They said "no we'd find a way on anyway." We all really hoped they didn't, but of course they did, and ended up sitting on either side of Jim, who volunteered to take the one odd ticket out, while the rest of us sat in the last row and had a good time chatting. The same Indian guy from earlier, the one with the young daughter, sat in front of us and was super cool and tolerant, even though he was probably grossed out by my eating Muesli and peanut butter straight from the container into my mouth.

       We finally got to Manali in a crawling traffic jam and decided to get out and walk the remaining 3 km, hauling all our stuff on our backs, up the hill to Vashisht. 

We passed this beautiful sign:

       We walked around looking for available rooms and had a lot of trouble finding any. However, Jon did find hash, sold to him by the guy working in the guest house. Finally, I walked to a large guest house and asked the guy if they had rooms. We shook hands and he showed Jim and I a decent room, cheap, with good plumbing. Jim commented that he liked the guy's sunglasses, then he said he wears them all day because he has this eye rash. He took off his sunglasses and it was obvious he had conjunctivitis. He complained that the eye drops he used weren't working and said he'd go to a doctor at some point. We told him he needed to, yes. When he left I told Jim "wash your hands right now or you'll get pinkeye" and we did. Thank God I got over my fear of washing with the local water. 

Here is the barn in the basement of our guest house:

       We left the guest house and had dinner at a great restaurant where a Swedish stranger joined us. Everyone but me smoked hash blunts, right at the table. Vashisht is well-named. Apparently, everyone in Europe rolls joints mixed with tobacco, and no one uses "pipes" as they call them here.

 Though this sounds like a drug-induced dream, I have proof that this painting actually hangs on the wall there:

Notice the hippo going for the bowl of fruit in the foreground and SPIDERMAN in the background!

Couldn't help but think of The Most Unwanted Art Project

       The energy is always so different when there's at least one female there. So much better. She's amazing though, it wouldn't be better with a lame one. She said she wishes I could stay longer and I appreciated the compliment but am ready to go home. I have to go buy my ticket to Delhi tomorrow morning when the bus station opens. If it's sold out I'm gonna miss my flight. Weird that I'll be in Massachusetts in 2 days. It's been raining so hard. I don't expect it to ever stop.