Manali to McLeod Ganj

Asia
October 22nd 2008

Published: October 23rd 2008

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Ben and Sarah

Manali

view from Old Manali

We took a 14 hour taxi from Rishikesh to make it here to Manali. We shared it with Dani from our trek. The drive was a long painful journey of slow windy roads. What made it more uncomfortable was our driver, he was really creepy and quite rude to us all. He would stare inappropriately at the girls and seemed totally unimpressed with my presence. There was no friendly conversation, although anytime one of the girls was by themselves, me and the other out of the car or asleep, he would try and strike up some weird conversation. Neither felt very comfortable and I was getting some unusual glares in the mirror. I moved to the front seat at one point, so the girls could have the back. He didn’t like this change and at any minute I was almost expecting him to lunge at me. I’d played it all out in my mind so I was ready for him. The tension seemed to finally fade away and we relaxed a bit. Happy to have made it eventually without any excitement.

The relentless downpour we arrived in finally gave in after two days. We left our room where we’d been

Manali

hibernating and took to the streets to do some exploring. The cold weather was unusual for the time of year and snow had fallen on all the peaks around us, the views were great. We were staying about 2kms from central Manali in a leafy elevated position called Old Manali. There were loads of stores, internet houses, tourist shops, trekking agencies, guest houses and restaurants. Pretty much everything was set up for tourist trade.

We checked out a few trekking agencies to see what was on offer. Unfortunately it was near the end of the season and the recent snow falls had made a lot of the high passes dangerous with ice so there wasn’t much available to interest us. We decided the mountain atmosphere was good enough to keep us here and we would do some day walks and general exploring ourselves.

There were a few bike shops hiring out Royal Enfields. A classic Indian bike designed in collaboration with the British when they were here back 60 or more years ago. The ‘Bullet’ is the more popular but we took a Thunderbolt as it was a little more comfortable for two people. We decided to ride

Manali

interesting place to park cars

up to Rohtang Pass where you have some good views of some 6000m peaks. The ride out was great as we cruised upwards into the valley, the views were impressive, the road was narrow and you had to watch out for potholes but otherwise it was pretty good as far the roads go here. The road took a turn and slowly we started to climb up with zigzag turns in regular succession, condors were flying above a canyon close by and the snow capped peaks were jotting out from behind the valley as we rose. About 20kms out of Manali I lost my throttle, our eventful history with hiring bikes was not going to let us down, we had a fuel leak. I cut the supply out and tried to get it going with no success, fortunately I could at least roll it back down to a cluster of shops so I could call the hire shop. Our arrival with the bike soon got the attention of the Indian men.. All of whom are expert mechanics for a good reason. They are always having to fix their ancient engines. I refused to believe they could get the bike going and

Manali

touring on the thunderbolt

left it with them for their amusement. After a couple of heated calls to the bike shop, the guy was refusing to come and help us, the engine roared back to life. Very proud of themselves they were. They made a temporary fix and we just made it back to the shop for a repair. We took the bike out again and only got a few km’s further than where we broke down before, the road had turned bad making it too difficult to ride on. The heavy rain had caused two much damage and it was too muddy and wet.

The people in Manali were extremely friendly and helpful without expecting anything in return. I had used a guys phone to make some calls and he refused to take money from me, and the guys who fixed the bike spent 20 minutes with it and they expected nothing from us. It was very different here and we liked it, in other places we had been it would have been a completely different situation.

Manali is famous for its local hashish. So there are loads of travellers, mainly Israeli, who come hear solely for this reason. Some end

Manali

good spot for a feed

up staying here months as the hash is good and they can live here for bugger all. Our guest house where we were was happy for people to smoke there, even in the restaurant, we were even offered some smoke by the owner. (of course we didn’t take him up on it mum). It was a very relaxed atmosphere.

We headed out on a day walk to the Solang Valley. The track started just above where we were staying in Old Manali, we were told that we could easily do this ourselves and a guide was not necessary. After about one hour into the walk the trail seemed to disappear and break up into very faint smaller trails. Without any signs to help guide us we carried on. Eventually we came to an unusually set up café and the owner gave us some directions. We continued, without a designated trail, until we became totally bewildered as to whether or not there was an actual trail leading any further. We saw some village women who kind of pointed along for us which gave us some encouragement, still no trails. Finally, we were literally up to our necks in vegetation struggling

Manali

walk thru Solang Valley

to go any further. Refusing to give up we pushed on, wading thru dense scrub, scratches appearing everywhere. We gave up on finding any trail and decided just getting off the mountain down to the valley would be the best idea. Slowly we descended coming to a step drop off, no not possible, we saw later there was a cliff below. We had to go further up and around, over a river. We happily found a light trail to take us on and finally to a village where we could get down ok. The 11km, few hour trek and turned in to a four hour repeating obstacle track. We didn’t quite make it to where we had planned to go. We arrived to a small town, we had a chai and caught the bus back.

We did some more exploring on the Thunderbolt, a joy to ride, especially with the views all around us. There was a nice castle that we visited and some small villages along the way. This time we only had some spark plug trouble, no biggy.

Just out of the main town there was a 50ft long 1ft deep puddle, it was a tricky

Manali

lost in the Solang Valley

one to cross on the bike but as long as you kept moving in low gear it wasn’t so bad. After several successful crossings I made another only to get halted in the middle by some cars in front. Reluctant to put my shoes in, I tried to balance the bike but not very well and the big heavy bike went over, I couldn’t stop it, and Sarah hadn’t moved her feet off the footrests, assuming I was in control - and that’s how she landed sideways in the water. We got some laughs but also some concerned interest for Sarah’s wellbeing. Nothing to worry about but wet clothes and my damaged ego. Luckily the sun was hot so drying off didn’t take that long. And Sarah was only “slightly” annoyed about being wet…

There were a few Tibetan people in Manali as it is not far from McLeod Ganj where His Holiness the Dalai Lama lives in exile, along with thousands of other Tibetans. This is where we discovered the momo, a typical Tibetan dish, kind of like a dumpling. You could get vegetable, chicken or mutton momos usually served with chilli sauce. We loved them so kept

Manali

Solang Valley, walking on the road was more fun

returning to the friendly Tibetan restaurant to have more.

After 5 or so days we took an overnight bus to McLeod Ganj. The sleeping tablets we purchased in Chile came in handy and put me into a deep slumber, like I was at home in my own bed. They made the journey bearable. McLeod Ganj was perched up on a hill overlooking Dharamasala, still at about 2000m above sea level, similar to Manali.

There wasn’t a lot to do here. We came to see it as this is where the Tibetan government in exile is located, including the head of it, the Dalai Lama. There are a quite a few Buddhist monasteries here as you can imagine, so there were monks everywhere going about their business. It was an interesting place just to hang out and the local coffee culture made this even easier. Unlike most other places we’d been, you could actually get proper fresh coffee here, however you take it. There were several coffee houses serving up our latte’s in fishbowl size mugs. You could sit outside in the sun and people watch quite happy for hours.

We timed our visit brilliantly as the Dalai

Manali

not a bad view

Lama was giving a three day talk whilst we were here. Anyone could go to hear him speak, but if you wanted to go inside to the temple to actually see him in the flesh you had to register your details to get a pass. Luckily we had some passport sized photos so we managed to get some passes. Inside the temple there were loads of monks, mainly Tibetan people and some tourists. The Tibetan people have the warmest of hearts and as we sat down next to some elderly ladies they fixed us up with some cushions to sit on, and then the monks came along and handed out Tibetan bread and butter tea. There was a great deal of excitement and worship as His Holiness came in with a security entourage, he was slightly hunched over as he walked. It was great to actually see him, and to witness this whole excitement and the culture of the Tibetan people was amazing. We felt really honoured just to be there. The talk went for about 2 hours. He spoke in English for at least half of the time, but he talked quite slow and his mumble and accent made

Manali

another day out touring

him difficult to understand. His constant chuckling throughout didn’t help, although it did make us smile along with him. Every now and then he would get some assistance with his choice of words from a translator. The rest was in Tibetan surprisingly, a hint of sarcasm there, but there were simultaneous translations broadcasting over the radio, we just didn’t have one ready. During the talk all Sarah could comment on was that he was “so cute”… He actually does have an astonishing resemblance to Yoda when he speaks…

We visited a Tibetan museum which was extremely interesting allowing us to broaden our knowledge on their history. There were some horrific first hand accounts of what some of the Tibetans went thru when the Chinese invaded. It really saddened us learning about how the Chinese destroyed this civilisation and culture. And still today no capable government has come to their aid. We hope to see a free Tibet in the future!

After a short visit, 3 nights, we took another overnight bus to Delhi in order to get our train to Goa. Northern India has been great, we loved the mountains but it was time for a total change