Bus Journey from Manali to Delhi

There were so many things that happened in Vashisht that I could have told you about but, as we are 2 months down the line, I thought I had better get into fast forward mode. I was leaving Vashisht half a stone heavier,  a mixture of eating too much of Champa's great cooking (which is very healthy on it's own) but also cakes, buiscuits and sweets from the German Bakery. I must be the only person to have been in India for 6 weeks and put ON weight! Oh well, Goa will sort that out after an episods of the s****.
We got on the bus in Manali at 5pm, after a sad farewell to Preetam and Champa with promises to return. The bus was a 'de-lux air con bus'. We had booked seats away from the front wheel arch as, due to the often terrible condition of the road, if you are sitting near the back of the bus you are thrown around and can feel like you are in a washing machine - not a good situation to be in for 14 hours! The bus looked quite comfortable and had recliner seats so we thought we might get a decent sleep, HA HA. Manali is a popualr place for Indian honeymooners so we were surrounded by young couples kisssing, holding hands and gazing into one anothers eyes.
We were only on the bus for about 30 minutes when we had to stop due to having a flat tyre - look on the bright side, it gave the smokers a wee chance to have a cigarette. The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful by Indian standards. There was only a few times that we nearly had a head-on collision, that we overtook another bus an a completely blind bend and that the tyres of the bus were on the edge of a mountain cliff with a sheer drop to the side of us . Colin, I must say is oblivious to all this. I would shout 'bloody hell that was a near miss' and Colin's reply woud be 'what near miss'.
No chance of getting a good sleep. Despite not being near the back of the bus we were still thrown around. As usual parts of the road had been washed away in the monsoon rains in July/August and hadn't  been repaired so the bus had to manouver its way over rubble that used to be a road. We managed to close our eyes for short periods only to be jerked awake. Finally arrived in Delhi, surprisingly in one piece. Booked back into the hotel, Cottage Yes Please and Colin went to book train tickets to get to Goa and we got tickets for the next day. The journey was only going to be 26 hours because it was the Rajdhani Train (that's the fast train in India).