Things fall apart

Too early an arrival at the bus stand in Rekong Peo, 0430, over five hours to wait for the permit office to open. And the place is busy, all seats taken, packs and parcels around the floor as passengers await the early morning bus, that narrow lifeline to the world beyond the valley.
A stroke of luck. The driver of our bus inviting us to crash inside for a few hours on the empty seats, shelter.
But then an anxiety attack, resurgent claustrophobia and isolation depositing something akin to terror, a too familiar feeling clinging to and mutating the thought process as the morning moves onwards out beyond the cyclic fug. 
And then down to the permit office, waiting for it to open while thinking abou jumping on the 1700 bus back down to Vashisht, lost in the shitshow of a dysfunctional brain. 
And then I have my permit, a choice. But the permit took time, the bus to Naka gone, choices narrowing.
Breakfast in Rekong Peo, the day unwinding through unexpected ambience, cocluding that this place is really quite lovely, the locals friendly, chilled out faces going about their day but with time to stop and chat, the dance slower up here in the mountains.
Over a milk coffee and bread pakora a decision, not tonight's bus but the one up to Kalpa. Stay there for a night, try to step back, find some clarity. But the bus up the hill brings the realisation that I don't want to travel on any more mountain buses, that the 18 hours journey has left its mark and the memory of the last time I was here has left a scar. 
But it's the same bus back to Manali, and it'll be three days from Kaza, the road north closed, weeks until opening the locals say. And it's ten hours to Kaza from here, which in this state feels like a bit too much. 
And then, almost immediately, there's a change in the air and it's two nights up here to figure things out, hope that the brain rebalances itself, decide. 
Walking from the bus there's an offer of a room, bargaining the price down, two rooms, two nights. 
And by the time we reach the homestay there's the certainty that coming up the hill to Kalpa has been a good decision.