New weekend trip; this time to Manali

We, the three norwegians and tre other volunteers from the new group, Katharina, Simone and Mary, went to Manali last weekend Thursday 4th to Sunday 7th of November. We had a very good time as you can see from the pictures even though the beginning was not exactely as planned. As travellers and not spoiled tourists we wanted to take the bus and not a taxi. We got information from some other volunteers that there was a night bus leaving at 11 pm from the bus station. The bus would most probably be 45 minutes late so we should wait until it showed up and we should wait by the road on the opposite side from the gas station. OK, this sounded fine so we ordered a taxi to the bus station at 10:15 pm from our camp. We wanted to be early in case the information was not all correct. When we arrived at the bus station at 10:25 pm we had alot of time so we bought some food for the 5-7 hours drive (different people would tell us different time) and talked to the guys in the store about going to Manali. At 10:43 I asked them about the bus to get it confirmed. The answer was: No time! No, no, bus Manali 10:45 from Old Bus Station. 2 km. And the guy pointed up the street. Ehh, I did not even know that there was another bus station and we had told them half an hour ago that we were taking the bus to Manali. We called the other volunteers and asked about the information again. They of course said the same as last time: 11:45 opposite the gas station, and we decided that they had to be right. They had after all actually been there. So we sat down and waited for the bus. The taxi drivers at the bus station continued to tell us that there would not be any bus now, but we insisted on waiting: six girls wrapped in blankets in the dark at 11:15 pm. Of course no bus came! So six girls wrapped in blankets had to get two taxies and go by taxi to Manali. The result was also that we arrived in Manali at 4:30 am so what else to do than to find our guest house for the next night, wake up the owner who did not speak English in the midle of the night, get a room and go to bed. And we can now confirm that it can be really cold in India, I guess 10 degrees Celsius. Another part of the story is that we had only booked room for three girls because Katharina, Simone and Mary had just decided to come with us. We was not only arriving a night earlier than booked and in the midle of the night we were also twice as many. It was Ida and I who talked to the owner and we did not dare to say that we were twice as many as booked so we got one room with a duble bed and the pictures tells the rest... Click on the picture to go to Picasa Nettalbum to read my comments to the pictures.