Day 5: Mcleod Ganj - Manali

Another day, another 250kms to cover. We had arranged for a (relatively) late departure time of 10am so that we could have a good rest and an unrushed breakfast. For some weird reason the hotel concierge who had arrange the transport for us had insisted we pay him the money instead of the driver, weird reason being that the driver, his 'friend' was a drunk who'd waste all the money on alcohol, so the concierge will keep the money for him. You don't need to be a genius to figure out the real reason, which is the concierge must have negotiated a different price with the driver, the difference in amounts being his cut. Anyway, the driver was agreeable and we were ok with the price, so we didn't make a fuss over it. The driver, Ramu (name changed to etc etc etc) at first came with a hatchback, so Dave sent him back for a van which was what we had agreed on with the concierge. In the meantime we had breakfast in the hotel. Dave wanted to try out a Tibetan breakfast. It was a tough choice between porridge and porridge, but eventually Dave went with the porridge. I had my usual alu paratha (yum yum) while Govin had something pitiful, considering the state of his stomach.

Like almost every single meal we had in India, the food took 45 minutes to 1 hour to prepare, even if we were the only people there. But can't complain though, the food would be more often than not delicious, due to the time taken to prepare it. Of course if you have a tight schedule to meet, 3 meals of such length would probably throw your whole day off-kilter, so the best solution would be not to plan a tight schedule as far as possible. That was one of the benefits of our long vacation - we did not pack too many things into our schedule (even though in the end it did appear that we'd done helluva lot) so when unexpected delays cropped up we had enough room to take it into our stride. If there weren't any unexpected delays, then all the better since we had more time to linger at scheduled destinations, add in short detours if we felt like it and last if definitely not the least, savour the long, lazy meals.

With stomachs full and the occasional rumble, we started on our journey to Manali.




See? I wasn't kidding about the roads.



The town of Mandi, from where the road tracks the Beas River all the way up to its roots.

And the further up we went, the more breath-taking it became...


A common mode of transport across deep ravines with rushing waters - the flying fox. The interesting thing about this one was that it goes uphill. Must be quite a fun ride.

A more routine way to cross the river.


The town of Kullu.



And so after 8 hours of being on the road, we finally arrived in Manali. Dave had a contact there, a friend of a friend, who had helped to arrange our accomodation. We picked Pavan up at the bus interchange, and he took us to our hotel, the Beas View. And for once a hotel lived up to its name.



The view was from our relatively spacious room which cost us a mere 1800Rp or thereabouts... definitely a bargain. While we checked in and settled down Pavan excused himself to return to his shop, and we arranged to meet up with him later in the night.

After unpacking we headed down to Manali proper, across the river from our hotel. The town itself is mainly focused on the Mall, a strip of road that's only open to pedestrian traffic. We whiled away some time at a typical Indian dive, a dark dingy place with an unused billiards table and old Hindi songs playing softly in the background. And it was here that we became directly acquainted with the inebriating, braincell-killing wonder that is Godfather beer. Goes well with chicken tikka. Or maybe not. After a while, you won't care anymore.

Barely clinging on to some form of sobriety, we headed back out to the Mall for our rendezvous with Pavan. We've had more than our share of the dodgy and lazy Indian stereotype, and here now was the flipside - the stereotypical Indian host who takes your wellbeing as his personal responsibility, even though you've never met him before. And this despite having to run a grocery shop for almost the whole day. He never said 'No' to any request of ours, and would take it as a personal affront if we didn't go through him to arrange for something. What's more, the transport and accomodations that he'd arranged for us were both good quality and good bargains. All this without asking for anything in return but friendship. On top of all that he insisted on paying for our meals, starting with a scrumptious veg meal that night, over which we we formed a new bond of friendship.