Manali

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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 in the cities). We stopped and watched them wrestle around and play in the afternoon sun.

We reached Manali and arranged our bus trip to Shimla for the following morning. Our next stop was the Hadimba Temple just outside of town from where we walked back across the river to Old Manali. We continued walking up the road through town to another temple and farm houses at the top of the hill. It was cool to see the old houses built into the hill (everything seems perched on a cliff in this part of India) and watch the locals go about their business. Returning closer to town we stopped at a restaurant and ate delicious green curries and sampled some Sula Wine which is an Indian winery. It was pretty sweet and not our preferred style but who are we to complain about cheap wine !?

The next morning we packed up and headed off for the bus to Shimla. I wish we had more time to spend in Manali, this is a place where a backpacker could relax for a week or two.

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Photos

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The streets of Old Manali

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Alex in the forest

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Monkey!

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The local wildlife coming to check us out

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Hadimba Temple

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Yak

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A local girl playing in the street

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Walking through the old town. You might not be able to see from this picture but there are wild marijuana plants growing as weeds all over the place here. It's kind of a weird sight for a couple of Canadians.

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These good looking ladies posed for us (for a small fee of course!)