Manali

There are so many places we want to see in India, it would take years, but since we are only here for a month, we decided see the North and not spend our whole holiday frying to death. Summer in India is rough and is best spent in the cooler mountainous regions of the country. We bought some bus tickets out of the heat to Manali in Himachal Pradesh, our first venture into the Himalayas.

Our Bus

The bus ride from Delhi to Manali is a 14 hour over-nighter, so we splurged and spent an extra $8 for a fancy air conditioned bus. But even a fancy bus is no match for India's roads. Often times only half paved and one lane, going was slow, rough and loud. Sudden accelerations and dramatic stops meant that it was a constant challenge to stay in the seat, which was unnecessarily slidey. Instead of equipping the hundreds and hundreds of trucks on the roads with mirrors, the trucks are painted with warnings to other drivers to "blow horns" every time they pass, which makes perfect sense. I felt so safe every time our bus passed a truck, horn blaring, mirrors are so unnecessary. Manali is also about 6000 feet above sea level, so we spent much of the journey climbing steep windy roads. My stomach of steel was able to handle it, but other passengers were not so lucky. The sounds of retching passengers, interspersed with honking horns, made for a relaxing pleasant journey.

View from our Hotel

We arrived in Manali early in the morning exhausted and found a guesthouse with little hassle. When we awoke from our six hour nap, we were able to actually appreciate where we were. Manali is a tourist town, situated in a lovely Himalayan valley, which attracts a large amount of domestic tourists, excited to see some snow. The town itself is actually terrible, but lucky for the Western tourist, a small village, "old manali" about 3 ks from the main town has sprung up to cater to the backpacker headed deeper into the mountains. This was were we chose to stay, and it is quite lovely. Our guesthouse has a delightful restaurant in a garden that makes Delhi seem so far away. We've had some delicious food and relaxed quite a bit with some local apple wine and naps. Old Manali attracts a lot of hippies, we've seen more dreadlocks here than at the Mussle Inn in New Zealand, and a lot of Israelis, the pita I had this morning was better than anything I've had in the States. Today we wandered up from Old Manali into a Tibetan Village with fantastic views and many stray dogs and cows.

Village near Old Manali