The road north

An early rise and a couple of brief coffees before heading for the busstand to find a bus to Mandi leaving in five minutes. Jump on, get breakfast later,  a journey of detours and dust through open windows, rough roads cut into the hillsides as we wind on through the hills.
Then, in Mandi, there's a bus to Manali leaving now. Jumping on into my favourite seat as familiar conversations in alien tongues surround me. And then told that the bus goes only to Kullu but that there's a connection, do we want to pay to Manali and wait an hour between buses or Kullu? Kullu, all good, eat there. 
And Kullu has changed, busier by far, the old green shack replaced by concrete, the new busstand offering a paneer burger, an hour to wait, time to eat. Until the conductor appears with the news that there's a bus to Manali leaving now. Clamber onboard, the penultimate leg and in record time, that impossible experience of brevity between buses. 
North of Kullu changes abound, the riverside lined by endless rafting stances, over a hundred rolling north between sparkling hotels and stalls selling maggi noodles; a world of dhabas and concrete skeletons which prophecise the future, flooding upstream ...
The final lurch, a tuk tuk up to Vashisht, J in the street waiting for milk cake before leading us up the steep steps to the guesthouse for a game of musical rooms. 
Later coffee and Malana cream on the balcony, the familiar slopes across the river carrying a murmur of return to a place I've never been.