The drive from Manali to Delhi was… well, it was a 12-hour minivan-ride in a land where there are lines painted on the road — but they don’t really mean anything, they’re more like “guidelines”; using your horn is a way to let other drivers know you’re coming up on them and they’d better move out of your way; blinkers have many uses — but rarely to let others know that you’re turning; women ride sidesaddle as passengers on motorbikes — without helmets, in traditional Indian dress; delivery trucks are individually painted in circus-like colors and adorned with tassels, sparkly garland, and light-hearted verses; blind corners don’t equate to a no-passing zone. We all slept much — mostly because it was easier than keeping your eyes open and white-knuckling it every ten minutes or so.

The team was a little bit heavy-hearted leaving Manali — well perhaps Mia was happy to be headed back to Delhi, but for the rest of us, Manali felt like home with just the right amount of foreign land to explore; it was the perfect mix of Stanley Park, Banff, and Disney’s Adventure Land — a resort town minus the resort. We extended our time there as it became necessary to flesh out the story that was unfolding as we conducted our interviews. This change made it necessary to cancel our booked flights, but there were no spots to rebook and that’s where the drive came in. We tried to get some interviews done in the van, but we were all feeling pretty drowned by the Gravol, so Josh shot lots of B-roll instead.

We got into Delhi at 7pm, had dinner and a production meeting, repacked, got about five hours of sleep and hopped on a 1hr 6am flight to Leh. This place is glorious and so refreshing after the heat we’ve experienced so far. Today we are spending the whole day just resting and getting climatized. Tomorrow, the guys will start the day with the sunrise and then we’ll go about town. It’s a whirlwind trip; we head back to Delhi Thursday morning.

Being here is pretty significant to us since it was having Leh on our itinerary that held us up from coming in September. If you haven’t been able to follow our journey up till now, just go back and check out all the past blog posts by searching ‘Child of Mine.” Check out this shot that Ryan took as we were coming in to land; amazing.