Day 6: Vashisht/old Manali

We woke up to the view of the Beas on a cloudy day. Inspired by the vista, we decided to get closer to the river. Unfortunately the river banks were fenced off from the road. But when we were walking along, we noticed a chink in the fence where locals were squeezing thtough, so we figured that there was a path down from the road to the river banks, and indeed there was.

We had a grand time posing for pix along the rushing river, enjoying the scenery. Eventually, after noticing a few patches of dark brown amongst the rocks, I figured out what the locals were doing here in the early morning (fast river = natural plumbing system+conducive sounds), after which we made our hasty way back up to the road.

Our destination was Vashisht, a little village about 2km upstream and uphill. We decided to trek it so that we can truthfully say that we had trekked in the Himalayas. It wasn't too difficult actually... bulk of the walk was along the main road, after which we cut right for the final 500m or so on a reasonable uphill climb. All in all it took us about half an hour to get to Vashisht.
Admit it... you were looking for people relieving themselves in this pic, weren't you?

On the trek looking uphill towards Vashisht.

Upon completing the climb we promptly collapsed in the nearest cafe we could find.
Dave in collapsed mode at the rooftop cafe.

Vashisht had many such rooftops cafes like this, with excellent views of the surrounding mountains.

My camera has 10x optical zoom!

The main street of Vashisht.

While slacking on the rooftop cafe we got to talking with this German hippie guy who had came here more than 10 years ago, fell in love with the place and promptly settled down, married a local and built a house. We learnt quite a bit from our conversation with him, including the interesting fact that most of the backpackers that linger around old Manali are Israelis... no idea why it's specifically so popular with them. We also found out from him that there was to be a rave party the following night at one of the discos in Manali town. That was our Saturday night made then.

After lounging there for a couple of hours, we decided to continue with our exploration of the village.


The local temple, which also had hot spring baths. Dave and Govin went in for a dip, while I lingered outside. While lingering a local guy came along distributing plums, and passed me some as well, telling me it was good 'for the system'.

The boys eventually emerged, reeking of sulphur, and we continued our exploration of the village by exploring an, uh, internet cafe. After updating our respective Facebook statuses, we ambled over to another rooftop cafe for another 3 hours of loitering, lunch, cards and Kingfisher beer, with a brief intermission when we stopped to see a wedding procession happening down on the street.




Eventually we got off our lazy asses and ventured back to our hotel. After freshening up a little we went to Pavan's shop to talk cock. We also got some lime and salt (you can probably guess for what, if not you'll find out eventually) from his shop and he also arranged transport for us the next day to Rohtang Pass, which was recommended by this bloke Govin met in a souvenir shop in Mcleod Ganj. From new Manali we took an auto to old Manali, about 3km further up.

The auto took us to the local temple at the very end of the road.






After exploring the temple we made our way down to the village.


Old Manali, like Vashisht, was a backpacker hangout. The winding road was lined with backpacker hotels, cafes, shisha bars and souvenir stalls, including a shop selling burnt CDs, from which I bought a couple of qawwali CDs amongst others.
Dave holding a leaf.

The leaf came from this plant.



The sun sets over old Manali.

At this point we came across an ayurvedic massage place. After all the exertion of the morning, we figured that a massage was just the ticket. And it was a pretty good massage too, at about 300Rp per person for an hour's worth. After the massage the proprietor gave us a really invigorating ayurvedic drink, which he said was good 'for the system'. It was spicy as hell, but I could already feel its refreshing effects in a short while. Unfortunately there was no instant powder that I could purchase to make this drink back home, since it was apparently freshly prepared out of raw ingredients.

I went for my massage last, since the guy had only 2 masseurs available and had to ring up some guy to come over. While Dave and Govin were waiting for me to finish, they went outside for a while and noticed some guys loading up speakers on a motorbike. Apparently a rave party was to occur later in the night somewhere up in the woods. We contemplated going for it, but in the end decided not to, since we didn't want to end up lost in the woods in the dark, and we were going for one the following day anyway.

The invigorating effects of the massage was cancelled out by our walk back to Manali town, where we ended up as exhausted as before at the Johnson Lodge Restaurant. The restaurant was a bit on the posh side, so we ended up paying posh prices as well.. about S$10-15 IIRC. But we settled for it since we wanted a change from the standard Indian meal that we've been having for the past 6 days. Once done, it was back to the hotel by auto, and to bed. It had been a completely slow and lazy day, just the way a holiday was meant to be.