Mandi to Manali

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Today's ride involved a climb back to 2050m to the picturesque resort town of Manali (as the itinerary put it). This was along some spectacular river gorge scenery and through a very long dimly lit tunnel. The lack of lighting and narrowness of the tunnel did not deter the truck drivers who continued to overtake one another regardless of who was coming the other way.

On one particularly windy bit of road, I found a Mahindra (Indian Jeep) that had obviously been in a collision completely wrecked but just abandoned in the middle of the road. It had a flat bed and had been piled up with vegetables which were now all strewn over the road.

We had a choice of two routes into Manali from one point and we took the more windy and scenic of those two routes. I myself believe that this and the place we stopped to regroup were carefully orchestrated by the tour leader as as we looked down into the valley below, we realised the the weed that covered the entire slope was "weed" (if you know what I mean). Now I know why Manali is full of hippies! :o)

I was left to be corner marker at the last corner before our hotel and I was standing beside a shop where there was a Mum and daughter who were intrigued by me. You could get quite uncomfortable at the frank way people stared or you could just go with it and enjoy the locals' curiosity and friendliness. I gave the little girl one of my souvenir Kiwis. Don't know what she made of it but her Mum made her pose for this photo.

The hotel had a nice garden bar and although we had a shower of rain, we all enjoyed downing 650ml bottles of Kingfisher beer there before dinner. There was a shoe shine man who was insistent he wanted to clean our boots (what's the point? Have you seen the state of the roads we'd be riding over?). I was wondering about his hair which was dyed bright orange. I later found out from our Indian guide that this can be done for a number of reasons: because he is a Muslim, because he is vain and doesn't want to show he has grey hair or even because the lighter colour attracts the heat less in Summer.

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Photos

Scared cows
These guys could be scary. They showed no awareness of traffic and if one decided to lumber across the road, it wouldn't stop or change direction just because you were riding past it.

Picture perfect
Note the "weeds" in the foreground

Cute kid
With souvenir Kiwi

The lineup of bikes
At Manali. Note the 6 bikes segregated from the rest of them. I'll explain why, tomorrow.