Visiting Manali: The onward bus journey

With hindsight, I'd probably go for an advance ticket and get on a
much nicer bus to go to Manali. As it was, my planning went like this,
"Hey, let me go to the bus stand and get on the first bus that goes to
Manali." Turns out, Manali is about 8-9 hours away, which is an
awkward length for a bus trip. Any shorter and you can depart and
arrive in the same evening, any longer and you can do a comfortable
overnight journey. 8-9 hours meant that I'd either be staying in the
C'garh busstop, bored, for another few hours, or arriving at Manali
before daybreak.

Or so I thought. I was going to get on the 10pm bus but on an impulse
I got on a 7:30pm bus which I was told was sold out at first. Only
then did I call my parents to let them know I was going to be out of
town since I wasn't sure upto that point! (Remember that restaurant
whose photo I once posted, that apparently served both "Indian" and
"South Indian" food? I ended up having a meal there before I left,
except that restaurant doesn't have any S. Indian dishes. So that
restaurant owner is both a bigot and a liar!)

I hadn't had a whole lot to eat before the trip, which was a huge
blessing. The bus journey was one of the worst I've ever experienced,
topped only by a catastrophic bus journey to Tirupathi where my
brother and I were tossed around like salt in a shaker. The only
reason this wasn't worse was because here the roads were quite decent.
But the driver for some reason felt the need to drive like he was on a
race track. Speeding up, and then slamming the brakes at turns, then
speeding up again, and then slamming brakes. Basically we kept getting
tossed around again, in 2 dimensions. The end result? Atleast half the
people who got on the bus were throwing up througout the journey! It
was incredible. All night long, people kept sticking their heads out
and spewing out their dinners. Those that managed to get their heads
out in time were the lucky ones. Some managed to wait till the bus
stopped for bathroom breaks etc. By the time it was light, I could see
the windows were all streaked and the floor of the bus was messy as
hell. It was a good thing I kept my bag above me!

The stars disappeared at 5am and there was enough light to read a book
by 5:15am. As we pulled into the bus stop, my fears about having to
wait till the city "wakes up" were gone. The bus stop was bustling
with activity, with the tea-sellers' business roaring. I found a
decent hotel room close to the bus stop and checked in.