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Transcript

"LAN Y CWM
AC YN OL

On my first trip to India I found myself within 24 hours of arrival on a bus heading to 'Nicula' Valley in Minali.

I thought I'd head up into the mountains because apparently this was the thing to do... this is where the weather was good.

I was enjoying the bus ride and trying to take in the magnificent scenery that was surrounding me because by now I was in the foothills of the Himalayas, but I wasn't totally that concerned because the bus driver that was on board was drinking liquor quite freely.

Looking down and seeing the sheer drops below just didn't make me feel very comfortable about the journey at all... after passing several villages the bus come to a halt, everybody got out and it was like we'd arrived at our destination. People were all having picnics except we were in the middle of nowhere. The reality was we'd run out of fuel... the bus driver hitched a lift off somebody going past on a motorbike and came back a couple of hours later with the fuel we needed. It just seemed so sort of bizarre to me that this was the way it was, but in another way I loved it.

It took about 24 hours to get to Minali. The weather was not good and, as soon as I had found a room, the heavens opened up and a downpour of epic proportions commenced - which is how it stayed for the rest of the week.

As beautiful as it was, it wasn't what I really wanted... I wanted to be able to walk in the mountains and go and have a look at the area and spend more time out - not in looking out at the rain.

A couple of days later I counted myself lucky to get on a mini-bus with some other tourists who were heading down the valley... however, my relief was short lived.

The minibus driver was travelling so fast the fact we kept saying to him slow down, slow down didn't make any difference. Whether it was because we were tourists, we found it really entertaining...I mean he just seemed to overtake anything and everything that was ahead of us. Going round bends on two wheels and on top of this he was having 'chillums' which didn't help at all or maybe I should say didn't make me feel any safer. It wasn't until a couple of boys on the bus threatened to take the bus and drive it themselves that he eased up. We were brought to a halt by a traffic jam that was trying to get passed the land slide which was now allegedly cleared.

Loads of people, up ahead and behind, waiting. People on the other side trying to come up and us trying to go down. We were lucky because we were in a minibus and able to get passed but other people had to carry their cases over and pick up buses on the other side and visa versa going in the other direction.

Two hours later we'd overcome all obstacles to reach the safe destination of Mundi and Sterling as we called him had, to be fair to him, brought us through safe and sound.

I headed back to Delhi even though I'd left there as soon as I could because I didn't like cities. To head off next to Rajasthan but that's another story."