old friends, sat on a park bench like book ends... ...

---

Manali, Manali……… exchanging a few emails with Miranda and Simeon took us to Manali, a place that we had not planned on visiting… we left the haven of Jari early and hit the road again. Back through the Kullu Valley and alongside the spectacular River Beas… We arrived in Manali early afternoon quite pleased with our time and looking for something to eat; we took the road to Old Manali and things started to go wrong!!! We drove into the back of a car (nothing major at all) whose driver decided to slam on the anchors, no warning, he was apologetic, as was his passenger…we were a bit shaken… we carried on and managed to get the bike down the narrowest, most inaccessible path where we happened upon a café… food seemed a good idea so we jumped off the bike and promptly dropped her! Ahhhhhhh…….BOLLOCKS…… It was at this point we questioned our decision, seriously! But our arrangement with our friends kept us there…

We saw nowhere we wanted to stay and were still in the floaty head space of Jari, the bustle of Old Manali was too much for us (how fragile we are??) so we headed to the quiet village retreat of Vashishth - about as quiet as Old Manali!! By this point we were tired, pissed off and needed to settle. We were dragged around, separately, to a number of flea ridden hovels by a one eyed, squinting, lisping, Quasimodo dude; Katie soon point blank refused to look at any other rooms insisting that something would happen……

Then some magic happened and a man appeared (ala Mr Benn!), who asked us if we wanted somewhere quiet… YES YES YES we chorused in dubious harmony, he took us to a beautiful wooden farmhouse on the edge of town… our hostess was an old farming woman who despite speaking no English would always stop and have a chat with us that inevitably ended with her laughing with(?) us…. Our room was her sons who had just been married off (he proudly showed us her photograph, ouch, it had to hurt)… Chris jovially asked if she still had her penis (no, don’t worry he didn’t really!)… the room was so cute, wooden shutters over looking the mountains and the river, sloping floor, a host of flies we managed to shoo with copious amounts of incense and much towel flapping… yet again we found a place for us to be quiet in the hub of a thronging tourist town… happy with our find we headed out for ice-cream and dinner….PeRFeCT…

The next day we headed off to Manali and our friends. Inevitably the clutch cable snapped on the way… What is it you’re trying to tell us, Poulet?... Chris jumped in a cab and returned with a mechanic and a clutch cable… an hour later we met up with Simeon, Miranda, Sam and Kuki… After a quick catch up we followed Simeon on his Bullet to a TENNIS CLUB (those of you who know Simeon may remember his Kensal Rise tennis club eviction!!)… An afternoon of lemon soda, water bombs crap tennis and more catching up… A few hours later we hooked up for dinner, a few delicious beers and a thali… Thank you Simeon and Miranda… It was nice to see friends, play with the kids and have a basis for comparison for our trip, it gave us a much needed objectivity…

We stayed one more day in our cosy little room, eating chocolate, reading and ummmm…enjoying each others ‘conversation’! We headed out the next morning refreshed, happy (and with the relief of Katie’s constipation a looming threat…), our plans to toward Spiti were halted for a night in Mandi, Chris got himself a shave and Katie got herself bowel relief……… ahh, the ADVENTURE!!!

---