Blogs from Manali, Himachal Pradesh, India, Asia
October 24th 2011
C'est toujours comme ca, quand on arrive a une place tot le matin (comme 3, 4 ou 5h) la place semble lugubre mais le lendemain on l'apprivoise et on commence a l'aimer. Manali est au nord de Dharamsala. On est arives hier matin a 5 h apres "seulement" 8 h de route. On est , encore, dans un guest house PURNIMA (pleine lune) avec vue impregnable sur les montagnes. Dans le Old Manali nous sommes tombes en amour avec les vieilles maisons typiques de la region. Le temple Hadimba est dans une foret de cedres incroyables. Ils y font encore des sacrifices d'animaux pour les grandes fetes. Aujourd'hui nous sommes alles a Naggar, petite ville de montagnes. Premiere aventure dans les bus locaux: musique indienne, incence a cote du chauffeur, la route en epingle, les motos ... read more
September 16th 2011
ha ha ha what an adventure that was! Manali also came and went and sorry for not updating you on my adventures there sooner but to be honest since we left Mcleod Ganj on the 3rd Sept, it has been just one big adventure since. Had a great time as you can probably imagine, meaning that updating travel blogs was the last thing on my mind. So I left Mcleod Ganj the night of the 3rd with some other friends who i had made whilst in Mcleod. We decided to go for the night bus option which was a 10hr bus ride, leaving around 8.30pm and arriving into Manali about 6am. This is where it all went tits up. Got on the bus and headed out of Dharamsala and along the dark road for about 2 ... read more
August 4th 2011
I didn’t miss the bus. An hour or so after my last post I met up with the others for lunch, we got sandwiches and fresh cookies in Roasted and Toasted and ended up staying there till about 7pm, joining our table with two or three others. I met a guy from London too, and we spent a few minutes doing what Londoners do, moaning about the price of drinks at home and the Great British weather. After this the four of us split up again, planning on meeting in a few hours for dinner. We met up for our last meal in Manali (I missed the opportunity to try one of Manali’s famous trout, which needs to be ordered a day in advance). Dinner was accompanied by beer, followed by a few more beers and ... read more
August 3rd 2011
We slept in the morning after our big road trip for a much needed rest. After dragging ourselves out of bed we headed down to a local cafe where we found breakfast and a great cup of french-press coffee. Good coffee has been hard to find in India. Actually, good coffee has been hard to find throughout our world travels, I guess we're just coffee snobs. After breakfast, we took a walk through the forest between Old Manali and Manali. This is significant because it is the first real strech of forest that we've seen in awhile. In the park we found the usual cows and goats but one thing that we weren't expecting was monkeys! These brown curious george looking things are the good monkeys in India (not the evil grey ones that harass you ... read more
August 1st 2011
Today was the second day of activities. Got to the center by 10am, ready for a morning of paragliding and zorbing. Keenen arrived and soon after we were in a jeep and on the half an hour journey, along the usual bumpy roads and dodgy looking bridges, to the paragliding center. Once we arrived we could see parachutes already in the air, though wherever they were launching from was hidden from view by the forest around the landing zone. The jeep driver pointed towards the hill and promptly walked off, so we headed in the direction he was pointing and started up the hill on a narrow dirt path. This path, it turned out, was bloody long, and inhabited by snakes. It took about 45 minutes to get to the top, at a pretty steep gradient, ... read more
August 1st 2011
Woke up pretty late after last night. After about 5 minutes I received a text from Helen suggesting we meet for breakfast, halfway through my reply I got another text from Steve asking the same. I met with Helen and we arranged to meet Steve and Keenan in town. We went for the very Indian option for breakfast, Little Italy, and waited for Steve and Keenan. As our breakfast arrived I got another text saying they had found breakfast somewhere else. We had breakfast and headed through Old Manali to meet the others. They were in ‘People’ cafe, a little place with a very friendly waiter which was covered in crayon pictures that had been done by customers, the quality of which ranged from art to scribbles. I grabbed a Chai whilst they finished eating and ... read more
July 31st 2011
Today was the first day of the 2 day adventure package that Keenen and i had signed up for yesterday. We had to arrive at the center at 9.30am. By 9.10 i thought it would be a good idea to stop pressing the snooze button and got up, got dressed and headed down to the center. Keenen was already there and after a cup of chai i picked up my climbing shoes and a rope and the five of us headed to the rock. As well as Keenen and myself there were two other guys and Cindi, the instructor. We walked for about 15 minutes up a steep narrow path before we reached the rock face. It was only about 25 feet high but below us was a steep drop and you had to climb a ... read more
July 30th 2011
Got up pretty late today and arranged to meet up with Damien. We met up, planning to go to explore Old Manali. I realised i needed money so we decided to stop in Manali town. We found an ATM and i stuck in my card, rejected. We went to another one, also rejected. After the third rejection i decided to do what i had done in McLeod Ganj and found a Western Union place where I can make withdraws off my card. Damien had come to find walking boots and as we had been going from ATM to ATM we had been stopping to look in the shops. By the time i had my money he had decided that Manali was not a great place to find walking boots and so he decided to keep his ... read more
The Life Story of a Manali Guesthouse Worker
Published: May 15th 2012Asia » India » Himachal Pradesh » Manali
July 29th 2011
Rujul kicks back in an armchair and looks over the valley towards Old Manali from his Vashisht guesthouse. With intensity he draws on his trusty chillum and looks at me with his dark Keralan face. At 39 years old he looks just 29. His face shows experience, but playfulness can be seen in his brown eyes and pointy features. I ask how he came to be a guest house worker in the Himalayas. He exhales thick smoke through his nose and proceeds to tell me about his whole life... Rujul began: “I was born in Goa, but my family was from Kerala. My dad was in the army earning 150 rupees a month (around 3 American dollars today) whereas my mother was a higher rank in the army earning 570 rupees a month. My father had ... read more
Day 24-25 (McLeod Ganj - Manali - Vashisht)
Published: August 2nd 2011Asia » India » Himachal Pradesh » ManaliJuly 28th 2011
Today seems to have gone in a flash. I got up early and headed back to my hotel, leaving Steve and Keenen behind. I packed up my things, paid the monks for my room and headed out to find food. Before i found it i went to Green Hotel, used the internet for a while and finished the last few chapters of the book i had been reading. I fancied pizza and had read in the LP guide that there was a non-veg pizza place called Jimmy's Italian round the corner, it sounded good so i headed out to find it. On my way there i ran into the Tibetan man who's camera had been taken yesterday. He was not in a good mood. Turns out his camera is now broken as a result of the ... read more
