Day 71 en route to Mandi

8:16 am and definitely feel a lot better. The others came back from their camping trip yesterday - mixed reports - glad I didn't go up there. By the way, yesterday I went down to the Aleo region, a twenty minute (downhill so easy, even in my current state) walk from here; did a tiny bit of bouldering, but too scared to climb up anything significant - some good slabs...would like to go back today - I'll see if I can get a belayer - probably not given the overall lack of keenness!

Interestingly - or maybe not surprisingly, some Hot Rockers have come back from the camping quite disillusioned. A bit of discussion last night - mainly about the general lack of professionalism; one Hot Rocker walked out in a defensive huff.

2:40 pm. We were to depart at 2 pm precisely, so of course we are still here. Not sure exactly what we are waiting for. 3:05 pm and still here. This bus is totally disgusting - cold box full of some stinking water / Kingfisher beer / juice cartons - all rotting away.

5:40 pm and we are en route to Mandi, at last. Actually at the moment we are stopped because 'something doesn't feel right with the bus'. Something of an understatement. This is Hot Rock. Lots of fiddling of wheel nuts.

8:50 pm arrived at Hotel Moon in Mandi, just off the Manali highway, near a place called Pandoh; and I've just completed another total waste of time cook duty a la Hot Rock. No actual cooking: I take everybody's order, after determining from the waiter what is available. Then I give the order to the waiter. Why? A pointless layer of bureaucracy. After the meal I have to collect all the monies and field the change. I hate this. Also we only covered about 70 km today. Haven't even made it to Mandi. We travel about 25 km every hour, with still about 400 km to Delhi. Also, while I am moaning about Hot Rock, why do they insist on putting three people into a two-bed room? - of course to save money, but this is India for goodness sake, not central London.

At least my headache has gone. For the time being anyhow. Also, decided that I am getting very bored with most of the people on the bus, with of course a few exceptions.