I survived the 12 hour bus ride from Delhi to Dharamsala! It was fine, in truth. I fitfully slept through most of it.
Stopping for dinner was the only actual adventure. We pulled into an intimidating rest stop area. It was particularly fragrant thanks to the over-used and under-cleaned toilets. Along with the toilets, the rest of the area was a restaurant. Not a very clean restaurant, either... The back was a kitchen, with people everywhere. I had no idea how this whole thing worked, so I stood back and watched for a while. I finally sat next to a lovely English woman. We waited for a while and then a man came over an spoke very quickly and (to us) unintelligibly. We hopefully indicated that we wanted some food. A few minutes later some food arrived. It was surprisingly good, daal (lentils) and naan (flat bread). A bill for ₹200 ($3.40) showed up next. As it happened, we were sitting next to a female monk and she immediately complained it was too expensive. The bill was whisked away and came back as ₹170 ($2.90) for no obvious reason. We paid our bill, but the monk lady went up to haggle a lower price. She came back happy, having only paid ₹120 ($2). The whole experience was rather intimidating and I was quite glad to be back on the bus.
Stopping for dinner was the only actual adventure. We pulled into an intimidating rest stop area. It was particularly fragrant thanks to the over-used and under-cleaned toilets. Along with the toilets, the rest of the area was a restaurant. Not a very clean restaurant, either... The back was a kitchen, with people everywhere. I had no idea how this whole thing worked, so I stood back and watched for a while. I finally sat next to a lovely English woman. We waited for a while and then a man came over an spoke very quickly and (to us) unintelligibly. We hopefully indicated that we wanted some food. A few minutes later some food arrived. It was surprisingly good, daal (lentils) and naan (flat bread). A bill for ₹200 ($3.40) showed up next. As it happened, we were sitting next to a female monk and she immediately complained it was too expensive. The bill was whisked away and came back as ₹170 ($2.90) for no obvious reason. We paid our bill, but the monk lady went up to haggle a lower price. She came back happy, having only paid ₹120 ($2). The whole experience was rather intimidating and I was quite glad to be back on the bus.
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