Travel days/nights aren’t always fun or exciting, but they do always seem to memorable or unexpected in one way or another. The journey from Agra to Manali was long, and involved quite a few different legs:

This trip had a few interesting moments, the first being in the middle of Agra buying some skincare and realizing we were running far shorter on time than we thought. With a bribe to the driver, he sped us across town to pick up our luggage, and then to the train station. We did our all too regular sprint across the platform and jumped on right before the train pulled away. Now to park up for a good few hours of sleep before the bus… right? Weirdly, the confirmation text only had one seat number alongside both our names, which I thought must have been a typo or admin era. Oh how wrong I was… turns out when the trains are overbooked they do something called ‘RAC’ which stands for ‘Reservation Against Cancellation’. This means you have been allocated a spot on the train but not a berth, and you have to share with another passenger until another passenger cancels their confirmed ticket. So when the conductor came along we were politely informed that we had to share a berth for this overnight journey, and we would be informed if something else became available. Spoiler alert, it didn’t! You also get the pleasure of still paying for two full tickets, even though you have to share one bed between two… don’t ask me how the maths of that works. In the end it was a very memorable experience, and I think the whole carriage got a good laugh out of our surprise when we realized. We had a picnic dinner, tucked up top and tailed, and managed to get some sleep (maybe me more than Josh), and now we always have a laugh thinking back on it. 

I also received a call in the middle of the night about the bus pick up in Chandigarh changing location, but between my sleepy stupor, bad reception and patchy English I didn’t have a clue where we were supposed to go. Once we got to the station in Chandigarh we found an Autorickshaw driver who seemed friendly enough, passed him our phone with the driver on the other end and got him to organize where we needed to go. Don’t forget it’s 3:30 AM in the morning at this point. We had specifically chosen a bus close to the railway station, so to then be told we had to run to the auto and speed across town for thirty minutes was hilarious. Somehow we chose an auto driver who was parked on the other side of the train station as well. A good reminder - you plan, India laughs! We have felt very trusting of most people here, but I did have a moment when I was heading through town in an auto at 4:00 AM in the morning and had no idea where I was going where I wondered about the safety of it all. But, we arrived at the bus stop right on time, and before long we were tucked up into our semi sleeper seats (one each this time) and on the way to Manali.

I was too excited to get much sleep, but thankfully Josh got a few more hours. Before too long we were on the windy roads of the Himalayan foothills, and our first chai stop with crisp, fresh air was such a treat. We were so excited to be in the mountains, and seeing the first snow capped peaks was met with squeals of delight! From here the journey was easy and scenic, and upon arrival in Manali we got a taxi up to our accommodation in Old Manali. The road was very steep and small so we walked the final ten minutes looking at the mountains and forest around us. The heat and dust of  Agra felt much longer than 16 hours ago. 

Journeys like this always teach you something, and looking back now it was such a memorable night! We have recounted the journey many times with laughter and great memories. We’ve really learnt to release control and take it as it comes, you can do all the planning in the world, but at the end of the day you just have to go with India’s flow. I think we’ve got more resilient with this kind of thing over the last few months, taking these kinds of experiences in our stride. Slowly but surely, we’re learning to absolutely love it.