Advertisement
Published: October 20th 2017
Edit Blog Post
Today was all about getting to know Koshla and Manali (the local village and area) and the families of our hosts Yoga and Dugli. We are staying in a traditional home that our travel expert organiser Robin helped build. It is made of local stone and pine. We have a separate bathroom with all the mod cons like electricity and a proper toilet.Sunny (their son), wife Sanita and cute 5 year old son Saransh live in the house right next door, where we eat. And a brand new puppy arrived today so there was great excitement all round.Sunny took us for a walk along the hillside to visit Yoga's mother and other family members, more chai and everyone askingg after Robin and when she will be back, she is obviously much loved by the family. Yoga's mum is about 80 and full of beans. In fact she was sitting on the step shelling
beans when we arrived. We asked if we could take a photo and she was most concerned because she was in her working clothes. And then her cellphone rang so we had to wait until she had taken the call!We next headed to the Hidimba Dev temple which was very popular with all the Indian tourists. It was surrounded by a beautiful grove of pines and large rocks. It all looked rather Japanese - will have to get Linda to confirm that! We could have got our photos taken with yaks or angora rabbits if we had so wished too.We had lunch at the very yummy Mayur restaurant - I can understand why it was recommended. We had a bit of a stroll around the town centre which was packed with holiday makers who were starting to let off crackers so we moved on. Plenty of time for fireworks later.
After
a brief but successful stop at the local kullu shop (scarves and other woven goodies) we walked on up the hill to Dugli's family home where we meet her three brothers and various other family members. They were in the midst of the apple harvest so we had a cup of chai and discussed the price of apples while they graded the Royal Gala crop. A gentle stroll back through the village, passing the cows that were also heading homeward, got us to the track back up to the house so we strode (well, walked slowly) home in time for a hot bucket shower, dinner and the fireworks display. The powerful crackers are still going off - perhaps this is what living through the blitz was like.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.166s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0442s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Rusti
non-member comment
Getting to know the family
I haven’t been to Manali, it sounds and looks so different from other parts of the country. Staying with family is awesome! You are having lots of good meals!! Keep well and happy, love Rusti xx