Road to Manali, July 2009

Bumpy, our driver picked me up curbside on Arakashan road. It took us three hours just to leave Delhi. The freeways to the north were just larger roads, laneless, full and mildly frightening. 15 hours away was Manali, the launch pad to the Himalayas, the greenest, most mysterious and exotic landscape I have ever seen. It hit me that this little jaunt was actually longer than driving from Salt Lake to the Pacific Ocean. Before long the cities disappeared, only towns, rice paddies and then villages. A one night stop in Chandigahr, then through Kullu and evenutally into Manali. Everything was different up there. It was like I was in some South-Asian Switzerland. The drive up was filled with conversations about photography, our assignments, religion, burning-man and everything inbetween. Bumpty made me try this crazy powder chew so I wouldn't fall asleep that looked like grey drywall dust, only it had a scorpion on the packet (red light #1) and turned my whole mouth deep crimson. I choked on it and I think there is still some lodged inbetween my throat and nose...probably in my brain by now...lovely. Bumpty bought a grip of Indian CD's and we coursed along. I just watched the land, the trucks, the truck accidents, the rain the rivers, the bikes the cows, the climbs and tunnells smear by. We felt like we were driving into the deep green throat of the Himalayas.