We took a flight from Jaipur to Chandigargh which took a couple of hours, when we landed we headed straight to the bus station. By that point it was about 8pm and the bus was due to leave around 11pm. I spent about half an hour wandering around trying to find out where to buy a ticket and where the bus went from, all to no avail. Then Craig did the same, it really was an odd place, the buses pulled into the station and there were concrete desks by each parking space. So you would think that you could get a ticket there, but no, they just stared at us very blankly. So true to form eventually we were approached by a man who said his brother the taxi driver would take us to Manali for £50. This he said would take 6 hours, awesome lets go, it was then 9.30pm
After about 6 hours on really wiggly roads we stopped for Chai, it was about 3am. Our taxi driver was a really lovely guy called Adu, he was 21 and drove like it. Craig had a moment about half an hour before we stopped where he asked him to turn the music down for about the 5th time. It happens to the best of us at some point..........
After 2 lovely cups of chai we were back on the road and eventually pulled into Manali at 6am. Neither of us had slept and where looking forward to a comfy bed for a few hours. The hotels were quite expensive and nothing special so we took the 2nd room that Craig saw and crashed. Not before offering to pay for a room for Adu, so that he could sleep, which he refused and then got back in his car and drove the 9 hours back to Chandigargh again.
Literally 2 or 3 hours later the noise from the road made it very difficult to sleep, so we were up. In the cold light of day Manali was not quite what we expected. We had headed here because many of the people we know from Goa spend the winter in Goa and the summer in Manali and we had heard it was a really cute little village in the mountains. The Manali we were in, was quite noisy, manic and not at all cute. After consulting the guide book we realised we were in New Manali not Old Manali, silly us eh......
So with little food or sleep, we jumped in a tuk tuk and headed to Old Manali. It was a lot more what we were expecting, a sleepy little village in the mountains. In our sleep addled state we had not thought to take our luggage with us so after seeing a couple of rooms and deciding on one in "Yes, please" (which can get very confusing when you ask a tuk tuk to take you there), we headed back to New Manali to get our luggage.
One of the benefits of "Yes, please" was it was right next to the Olive Garden pizza restaurant, which was our first stop. From here we got our first view of the mountains surrounding Manali.
By the time we got ourselves sorted and sought out a couple of friends it was time for dinner and bed. Oddly on the way back from the hotel we came across a very sweet lady with a huge white rabbit. Over the coming days we saw her a lot, and she always had the rabbit!
Manali 6,726 ft in the Beas River Valley is a hill station nestled in the mountains of the of Himachal Pradesh near the northern end of the Kullu Valley. The small town is the beginning of an ancient trade route to Ladakh and from there over the Karakoram Pass on to Yarkand and Khotan in the Tarim Basin. The climate predominantly cold during winters, and moderately cool during summers. The temperatures range from 4 °C to 20 °C over the year. The average temperature during summer is between 04 °C and 15 °C, and between −15 °C and 05 °C in the winter. It is one of Indias premier ski destinations. After some of the places we have been it felt really, really cold, this was Craig the first morning.......
It was really coming towards the end of the season so a lot of hotels and restaurants were closed or closing, but we found a couple of places that served good food, and pretty much stuck to them. Old Manali is a one street village, that winds it way up the side of a mountain. The village starts at the river at the bottom and keeps going up, and up and up. A regular form of amusement from our 1st floor balcony was to see passengers in tuk tuks have to jump out and push the tuk tuk round some of the bends.
The main income other that tourism here is farming, whether crops or livestock. Coming into New Manali the first morning Craig saw (I was dozing) literally hundreds of sheep and goats being herded through town. However in Old Manali everyone seems to have just one cow and maybe one sheep. Everyday and night they walk them from their homes at the top of the village to some grazing down near the river.
Walking around town was if quite tiring a very quaint experience, everyone is very friendly, the pace of life is very chilled and there are animals everywhere, you really get that village feel.....
That morning we has seen a tiny puppy lying in the road, he looked fine and was enjoying the sun. Despite being crazy drivers Indians will do anything not to hit an animal, so we left him knowing he would be quite safe.
When we stopped for lunch that day we became acquainted with the rest of the family. There were 12 in total, born to 2 mothers within hours of each other. They were totally adorable, but also very noisy and very difficult to control. The owners of the restaurant went on average onto the road every 10 minutes to collect them back to the restaurant. All the shop owners and tourists were soon doing the same, so it was funny to watch them making their escape and all manner of random people returning them.
The mothers were very easy going and let anyone handle them, probably being glad of the break. But when a holy man came into the restaurant, things changed slightly. To be fair to them he looked pretty scary and what you cant see in the video is that he had a long red tail, which is just odd
Obviously by this point we both had streaming colds and Craigs back was not ideal. So the plan for the rest of the trip was really rest. We could spend a week in Manali before flying to Kerala to spend 3 weeks. Then a flight to Sri Lanka for 8 days and home, yes its all booked and decided.
So the following days were lots of walks and looking at the mountains which are pretty epic.
There is a small temple and some very interesting houses....
One day as we stopped for a drink, ciggie and to admire the view we were joined by a dog friend
Now might be a good time to mention that, that morning I had all my hair cut off. One of our friends from Goa is a barber, and was shocked at the state of my hair, when we arrived. Admittedly it had gone very thin and dry. He said the only solution was to shave it off, which i laughed at, and we compromised on a short bob. My reckoning is by the time i get back it will have grown a bit, and if not hopefully I'll be used to it by then.
Anyway our dog friend was quite young and a bit enthusiastic, but soon it seemed that he wanted us to follow him. So as it ended up he took us on a 4 hour walk up into the mountains, and when we turned around he was still wanting to go on further. As random as it sounds, it was good fun and we got to see some of the forest we probably wouldn't have gone into. The only downside being that he chased all the monkeys away before we even saw them.
The following day we took a trip to a nearby village where there were supposed to be hot springs. There was a cute little temple, but the hot springs were truly disappointing.
And some more walks, this was the "nature" walk at the bottom of Old Manali. There was no nature, but some quite eery trees, the lack of nature may have been down to the Bollywood film that was being filmed there. Although they were not that noisy, but quite amusing to come across in the middle of the forest.
To be fair we saw more nature at the chicken house on the way back to the village.....
After being in Manali for nearly a week we got a view of the snowy mountains around us.
And finally i got to meet a yak. He is a very impressive beast, and it was quite scary sitting on him. Just a couple of facts about yaks, they are used primarily for fur and transport and they are able to live as high as 20,000 ft. The males horns can grow to 40 inches long and the yaks themselves can reach 6.5ft at the shoulder and weigh up to 150 stone. There are many stories about people in the Himalayas being run off the mountain by convoys of them. They are very solid creatures and i wouldn't want to meet one on a dark, cold mountainside!
A couple of days later we left Manali, when we left Adu in Old Manali he had made us promise if we were going back to Chandigargh to give him a call and he would come and get us. And he did, bless him, driving all through to the night to arrive at 3am, sleep for 2.5 hours then he picked us up at 6am. And we were on the road again, we purposely chose to go during the day so that we could see the windy mountain roads we had not seen on the way in.
Even just getting out of town was eventful, there were herds of animals everywhere. The drive was certainly scenic and probably some of the worst roads we have ever been on. There was always a sheer drop off one side, and numerous landslides leaving boulders in the road. The mountains are beautiful but scary too, we saw some people using what looked like a zipline with wooden baskets underneath to deliver goods to people on the other side of gorges. These were dotted all along the valley that took about 7 hours to drive through, it makes you realise how isolated some of these people really are.
We arrived at Chandigargh at about 6pm and Adu recommended a hotel. It was pretty scabby, but cheap and warm, and only for one night.
The following morning Adu picked us up to take us to the airport. We had to take two flights one to Mumbai and then onto Cochin in Kerala. Luckily we were able to upgrade for £2.50 each on the first flight and went into business class. As it was not a big plane this was just the first two rows, but we had more leg room and free tea, so that was a result. We had three hours to kill in Mumbai airport and luckily there was a food court and a Body Shop, so that solved that problem.
As per usual when we descended from the 2nd flight into Kerala my ears where killing me, two flights in one day is just not possible. Anyway to distract myself I got some good shots of the sun setting just before we landed.....
So here we are Kerala, the 2nd to last stop on our journey. We are headed straight for the beach at Varkala, so the adventure continues...........
After about 6 hours on really wiggly roads we stopped for Chai, it was about 3am. Our taxi driver was a really lovely guy called Adu, he was 21 and drove like it. Craig had a moment about half an hour before we stopped where he asked him to turn the music down for about the 5th time. It happens to the best of us at some point..........
After 2 lovely cups of chai we were back on the road and eventually pulled into Manali at 6am. Neither of us had slept and where looking forward to a comfy bed for a few hours. The hotels were quite expensive and nothing special so we took the 2nd room that Craig saw and crashed. Not before offering to pay for a room for Adu, so that he could sleep, which he refused and then got back in his car and drove the 9 hours back to Chandigargh again.
Literally 2 or 3 hours later the noise from the road made it very difficult to sleep, so we were up. In the cold light of day Manali was not quite what we expected. We had headed here because many of the people we know from Goa spend the winter in Goa and the summer in Manali and we had heard it was a really cute little village in the mountains. The Manali we were in, was quite noisy, manic and not at all cute. After consulting the guide book we realised we were in New Manali not Old Manali, silly us eh......
So with little food or sleep, we jumped in a tuk tuk and headed to Old Manali. It was a lot more what we were expecting, a sleepy little village in the mountains. In our sleep addled state we had not thought to take our luggage with us so after seeing a couple of rooms and deciding on one in "Yes, please" (which can get very confusing when you ask a tuk tuk to take you there), we headed back to New Manali to get our luggage.
One of the benefits of "Yes, please" was it was right next to the Olive Garden pizza restaurant, which was our first stop. From here we got our first view of the mountains surrounding Manali.
By the time we got ourselves sorted and sought out a couple of friends it was time for dinner and bed. Oddly on the way back from the hotel we came across a very sweet lady with a huge white rabbit. Over the coming days we saw her a lot, and she always had the rabbit!
It was really coming towards the end of the season so a lot of hotels and restaurants were closed or closing, but we found a couple of places that served good food, and pretty much stuck to them. Old Manali is a one street village, that winds it way up the side of a mountain. The village starts at the river at the bottom and keeps going up, and up and up. A regular form of amusement from our 1st floor balcony was to see passengers in tuk tuks have to jump out and push the tuk tuk round some of the bends.
The main income other that tourism here is farming, whether crops or livestock. Coming into New Manali the first morning Craig saw (I was dozing) literally hundreds of sheep and goats being herded through town. However in Old Manali everyone seems to have just one cow and maybe one sheep. Everyday and night they walk them from their homes at the top of the village to some grazing down near the river.
That morning we has seen a tiny puppy lying in the road, he looked fine and was enjoying the sun. Despite being crazy drivers Indians will do anything not to hit an animal, so we left him knowing he would be quite safe.
When we stopped for lunch that day we became acquainted with the rest of the family. There were 12 in total, born to 2 mothers within hours of each other. They were totally adorable, but also very noisy and very difficult to control. The owners of the restaurant went on average onto the road every 10 minutes to collect them back to the restaurant. All the shop owners and tourists were soon doing the same, so it was funny to watch them making their escape and all manner of random people returning them.
The mothers were very easy going and let anyone handle them, probably being glad of the break. But when a holy man came into the restaurant, things changed slightly. To be fair to them he looked pretty scary and what you cant see in the video is that he had a long red tail, which is just odd
Obviously by this point we both had streaming colds and Craigs back was not ideal. So the plan for the rest of the trip was really rest. We could spend a week in Manali before flying to Kerala to spend 3 weeks. Then a flight to Sri Lanka for 8 days and home, yes its all booked and decided.
So the following days were lots of walks and looking at the mountains which are pretty epic.
There is a small temple and some very interesting houses....
One day as we stopped for a drink, ciggie and to admire the view we were joined by a dog friend
Now might be a good time to mention that, that morning I had all my hair cut off. One of our friends from Goa is a barber, and was shocked at the state of my hair, when we arrived. Admittedly it had gone very thin and dry. He said the only solution was to shave it off, which i laughed at, and we compromised on a short bob. My reckoning is by the time i get back it will have grown a bit, and if not hopefully I'll be used to it by then.
Anyway our dog friend was quite young and a bit enthusiastic, but soon it seemed that he wanted us to follow him. So as it ended up he took us on a 4 hour walk up into the mountains, and when we turned around he was still wanting to go on further. As random as it sounds, it was good fun and we got to see some of the forest we probably wouldn't have gone into. The only downside being that he chased all the monkeys away before we even saw them.
The following day we took a trip to a nearby village where there were supposed to be hot springs. There was a cute little temple, but the hot springs were truly disappointing.
And some more walks, this was the "nature" walk at the bottom of Old Manali. There was no nature, but some quite eery trees, the lack of nature may have been down to the Bollywood film that was being filmed there. Although they were not that noisy, but quite amusing to come across in the middle of the forest.
To be fair we saw more nature at the chicken house on the way back to the village.....
After being in Manali for nearly a week we got a view of the snowy mountains around us.
And finally i got to meet a yak. He is a very impressive beast, and it was quite scary sitting on him. Just a couple of facts about yaks, they are used primarily for fur and transport and they are able to live as high as 20,000 ft. The males horns can grow to 40 inches long and the yaks themselves can reach 6.5ft at the shoulder and weigh up to 150 stone. There are many stories about people in the Himalayas being run off the mountain by convoys of them. They are very solid creatures and i wouldn't want to meet one on a dark, cold mountainside!
A couple of days later we left Manali, when we left Adu in Old Manali he had made us promise if we were going back to Chandigargh to give him a call and he would come and get us. And he did, bless him, driving all through to the night to arrive at 3am, sleep for 2.5 hours then he picked us up at 6am. And we were on the road again, we purposely chose to go during the day so that we could see the windy mountain roads we had not seen on the way in.
Even just getting out of town was eventful, there were herds of animals everywhere. The drive was certainly scenic and probably some of the worst roads we have ever been on. There was always a sheer drop off one side, and numerous landslides leaving boulders in the road. The mountains are beautiful but scary too, we saw some people using what looked like a zipline with wooden baskets underneath to deliver goods to people on the other side of gorges. These were dotted all along the valley that took about 7 hours to drive through, it makes you realise how isolated some of these people really are.
We arrived at Chandigargh at about 6pm and Adu recommended a hotel. It was pretty scabby, but cheap and warm, and only for one night.
The following morning Adu picked us up to take us to the airport. We had to take two flights one to Mumbai and then onto Cochin in Kerala. Luckily we were able to upgrade for £2.50 each on the first flight and went into business class. As it was not a big plane this was just the first two rows, but we had more leg room and free tea, so that was a result. We had three hours to kill in Mumbai airport and luckily there was a food court and a Body Shop, so that solved that problem.
As per usual when we descended from the 2nd flight into Kerala my ears where killing me, two flights in one day is just not possible. Anyway to distract myself I got some good shots of the sun setting just before we landed.....
So here we are Kerala, the 2nd to last stop on our journey. We are headed straight for the beach at Varkala, so the adventure continues...........
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