Old Manali

Feeling tired of trudging around the golden triangle through dusty and littered cities, we both felt it was time to head to the mountains and get some fresh air and get in touch with our ‘inner hippie’. My inner hippie is fairly well hidden although I think Laura’s is closer to the surface as within minutes of arriving at this sacred Mecca for dreadlocked, tie dye clad westerners and Israelis who’ve recently finished their national service – Laura was, and I quote ‘feeling blissed out’.

The journey to Manali starts in Delhi where we boarded a tourist bus with luxury air conditioning, and that’s about it. After having splashed out on a private driver for the golden triangle and flying with Emirates, we were not used to slumming it. I was at least hoping for an on board refreshment trolley and hot towels to mop my weary brow. But alas there was not even a toilet. This would have been ok for a short journey around town, but we had just embarked on a 16 hour bus trip and for some it would be the trip from hell.

Laura hopped on board the bus to grab us seats next to each other and I threw our bags in the hold. A small man in the luggage compartment was crawling around on his hands and knees arranging the bags who demanded that I pay him for placing our bags in a heap next to some old cement sacks. I chose to ignore his demands and got on to the bus. The bus pulled away from the station and slowly weaved its way between tuk-tuks and the screeches of car horns.

After about 20 minutes we arrived at one of Delhi’s busiest petrol stations where we stopped for quite some time. India’s reliance on fossil fuels is quite shocking, their government subsidise petrol and the countries thirst for it makes F1 motor racing look like a green hobby. Others on the bus were getting supplies from the forecourt shop so I thought it would be a good time to get some supplies too. Our dinner on the bus consisted of a bottle of Himalayan mineral water and a big bag of Lays ‘American Style’ cream cheese & chive crisps – delicious!

After several more stops to pick up passengers on the way out of Delhi we started to make good progress. Both of us managed to get quite a bit of sleep, but were awoken by terrible sounds of retching from the front of the bus – probably induced by the severe hairpin turns making the bus swerve from side to side like a small boat on a rough sea. As if the road wasn’t bad enough in true Indian style the driver was trying to overtake everything and anything on the road which was barely wide enough for a horse drawn cart.

The stomach strangling noises from the front of the bus didn’t have much chance to fade as the road to Manali is long and cruel, yet I was comforted by the fact that the person being sick was a young Japanese teenager who had been striding around at the various stops like a peacock, wearing just a vest so he could flex his muscles at every opportunity clearly believing his was the quite the man. Now that he had been reduced to a quivering wreck I felt that even in a place so bizarre and upside down as India is something’s are fair in life.

After bidding farewell to our dear fellow passengers at the stop in New Manali we jumped into a tuk-tuk and struggled up the steep hill towards Old Manali where we were informed by our trusty guidebook that there was an idyllic place to stay half way up a narrow dirt track along the river. The tuk-tuk dropped us at the foot of some steep rock steps which we clambered up in flip-flops and then onto the dirt track walking past lizards basking on sun soaked boulders. Walking away from the noises of the road up the bank of the river we eventually came to the Rockway Cottage. The cottage is surrounded by vibrant green trees on the banks of the river and higher up you can see snow capped mountains in every direction. There is a small ski resort nearby so watch this space for some Himalayan shredding.