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Published: July 13th 2012
Manali is such a sleepy little mountain village, but it's not always obvious. Recently it has become a popular destination for people all over India to take respice from the monsoons and heat in the rest of the country. We met a couple from Delhi who said that it is 45 degrees c there right now. I don't know the exact conversion, but it's well over 100 F, so it's no wonder they want to climb into the mountains and shelter themselves among the surrounding snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas.
The main roads and town centers are full, as is most of India, of taxis, motorcycles, rickshaws, and delivery trucks- all honking and driving around each other in a loud fury to gain even the slightest distance towards their destinations. It's not completely odd here to see two vehicles facing each other nose to nose, each one expecting the other to back down or move somewhere.
When one can manage to get out of these areas, the quiet mountain people emerge from their barn/house combination living quarters (cows, goats, and sheep occupy the lower floors of most houses) with their woven baskets on their backs, and they head for
the hills to cut grass. Young and old women sit at looms making blankets out of wool spun from their own sheep and goats, and men come and go from who knows where to take a break at a chai shop talking about what I only imagine must be the weather. They where very structured cylindrical hats embroidered with bright colors that sit only a couple inches above their ears.
By the time we were ready to move on, it had begun to rain almost every day. A memory of the views from our guest house of the surrounding peaks being socked in during rain with a blanket and a good book is a nice souvenier from this little stop on the way to the top of the world.
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