Chilling in Manali

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Woke early again to such a fantastic view aross the valley, birds singing and sun shining - so beautiful, and can't believe I'm finally here! Unfortunately, we have both been completely knawed in the night by bedbugs so decide to head in to Manali to find a tailor to make us up a sleeping bag for protection.

We walked down the valley to Manali town, dodging the traffic, dogs and cows, the road runs alongside the river and they have fairly regular landslides in the area. The edges of the road are currently being rebuilt after a series of un-fixed slides, so even early in the morning there was families of road-workers lifting heavy boulders in to position. By the time we were nearing the town we were so hot and sweaty, the river looked so tempting - but the rapids, warned us not to even attempt it!

So, walked round Manali for a while, and up to Old Manali via the forest, they call it their jungle. The forest is fantastic, we both loved it - it is really cool and shaded by the tall pines, there is groups of local women sweeping the pine needles and/or just sitting around in groups knitting and chatting - passing the time in the shade. Throughout the forest there's huge rocks just dumped at random from the glacia that formed this valley.. decided that this is just the place that the 'Enchanted wood' (book read as a child) was written about, so magical! So I posed as fairy on the rocks...

Anyway, we found a tailor and eventually managed to explain what we were after.. I sat with him for nearly two hours whilst he worked, smoked, drank chai... He didn't speak very much English but we understood each other enough for a basic conversation about our families.. he has three sons who work locally and was so excited when he saw my camera. He rushed around trying to round up his sons.. only one of them was free to pose, but they were really chuffed to see themselves on the screen.

Joe went off with another local bloke who, on hearing of your 'bug situation' knew just the thing... Joe came back with a worried look on his face and a bag full of agricultural-strength pest killer and some sort of fuel and pump!!?? Apparently, if you mix this highly potent and deadly stuff together, spray it on the bed and leave it for a day, you won't get bothered by the bugs again... hmmm, we decided that if we followed these simple instructions the reason we wouldn't get bothered again would have something to do with never waking up again... disposed of the stuff and resolved to use our new sleepingbag and more 'deet' instead!

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Photos

Joe in playground
No this isn't as dodgy as it sounds!! He was asked by work to look out for playgrounds on his travels.. he is involved in planning for them at home...