INDIA & BANGLADESH 2014: 2 From Shimla to Manali, India

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Although Rakesh did not want to leave until later I knew we had a long drive, and I wanted to arrive in daylight, so I insisted on an 8:30 AM departure. Traffic was lighter on the road to Manali, partly because today is Sunday - Hindus have the same holy day as Christians. The road still twisted along the side of high hills, so the passing was no less hairy, but Marilynn seemed to be getting used to it and is having less panic attacks.

The day was bright and sunny. After a couple of hours of side hills the road dropped into a broad valley where there is no snow in winter. The going became slower, as we were in more populated areas. We followed a river to the end of the valley, and just before the terrain went vertical, crossed a bridge and drove back the other side until we forked off along another river. We were surrounded by much higher mountains, but no snow yet.

I'd had a chat the Rakesh, which he seemed to take to heart - he tried hard to point out everything of interest, but his limited English made it difficult to understand. We were still passing lots of monkeys along the road and in towns as well. We also passed a family of silver coloured langer monkeys– both species are large in size but the langers have much longer tails. The others are brown with bare pink faces framed by longer fur. They look exactly like snow monkeys I saw in Japan.

We stopped at a resort on the shore of the river for a lunch break, but even in a resort I couldn't get a beer. It is very hard to come by here, as most restaurants have no alcohol – only bars. Marilynn made the mistake of ordering a hot dog from the menu, and received a slice of cheese with chopped cabbage in a hot dog bun – the local version, I suppose. She asked around later but found no one who knew what a hot dog was.

As we continued the mountains closed in, forming a high canyon where the road was cut into the cliff along the river. The cliff actually covered the road like an open sided tunnel in several areas. At one point a 3 km (1.9 mi) tunnel was necessary. Even through villages the paved part of the road was only single lane, and many areas were filled with massive potholes. When the canyon walls were not vertical there were houses with subsidence terraced farms on the far side of the river. Only metal baskets the size of a large ice chest on a cable to be pulled across the raging river by hand connected them to the road.. Where there was more population there would be a suspension bridge.

At one point there was a beautiful Hindu Temple across the river, with a colourful guard rail leading down to a smaller temple on the river bank. It was also connected by a cable across the river. There are many, many temples in this area, almost all to the God Lord Shiva.

We were passing more police check points, where barricades across alternating sides of the road caused single land traffic to do a slalom course through them. Most were to charge tolls to out of state vehicles. We were also passing army convoys in both directions, likely hauling troops to the confrontation with the Chinese on the Tibet border in the area where we are headed.

We went through one stretch of valley with a sub-tropical climate – the hills rising from the river were full of palm trees. It reminded us of when we dropped from the freezing cold of Tibet and crossed the border into Nepal to find a valley lined with palm and banana trees. There are similar areas in Sikkim. It is really not the way one thinks of the foothills of the mighty. snow covered Himalaya mountains.

Our driver, Manoj Kumen, once again did a brilliant job of navigating around slow trucks, buses, herds of water buffalo, donkeys, dogs, potholes and sacred cows who will stand in the middle of the road and stare down oncoming vehicles, regardless of horn blowing. They must think they are not only sacred but immortal!

Manoj was not only an excellent driver, but also a great source of information, helping Rakesh with questions we would ask. For those taking this trip I would suggest a driver with a little English and no guide. It would cost less and make a small car more comfortable.

Closer to Manali we began to notice the Buddhist influence. Narrow suspension bridges across the river were draped with prayer flags, larger prayer flags were along some river banks, house designs were more Tibetan and there was the odd temple and stupa. We had expected Manali to be higher than Shimla, but it is 200 meters lower at 2,000 meters (6,560 ft) above sea level.

We circled around Manali to the Golden Tulip Hotel. I'm familiar with the Dutch hotel chain, who have a good reputation, but they recently acquired this one. The elevator doesn't work, and neither does the internet. The shower in the morning produced scalding hot water out of both the hot and cold taps, making it unusable. The room was fine, but the bathroom shower has no curtain or partition, so can splash the whole room. The worst thing was that the restaurant has no beer or wine.

The receptionist at the hotel had no hesitation in recommending that we take a taxi to Johnson Hotel. It turned out to be a super spot, with beautiful gardens, an excellent bar and the food was superb. Their speciality is fresh local trout, and the menu had a full page of different ways it could be prepared – I took the waiter's suggestion. We had a bottle of wine with dinner and drinks before. The ride back to the hotel was in a motor rickshaw.

Monday, September 22, 2014

While waiting for out pickup I had a talk to the hotel manager about the problems. He said the hotel was to have a major work over, but let me use his computer to get a trip update sent. He also gave me a device to plug into the computer to get internet, and promised to have the shower fixed. He could not have been more courteous or helpful. We were picked up by Manoj, but with local guide Hadish - we never saw Rakesh again.

The first stop was the Hadimba Devi Temple, built in 1583 in a beautiful, tranquil park with a profusion of huge cedar trees. It is a beautiful spot, well shaded against today's hot sun. Across the valley we visited the Vashist Bath, a hot spring bath with one for women and one for men inside a Hindu temple. Further up the road hot water poured out of tubes for women to do laundry. Even further up was another hot pool for pale skinned tourists.

The final stop was a Tibetan Monastery right in the centre of town, then we walked through the mouse maze of shops of the local market. Lunch was at a very good Chinese restaurant Hadish knew – this is his home town. While having lunch he explained that he owned the car we were driving in, and that Manoj worked for him. He will be coming with us to Leh, and as his English is excellent we agreed he would be guide and driver.

Back at the hotel we gave an envelop to Manoj to pass on to Rakesh with a tip, tipped Manoj plus gave him gifts for his 10 year old son and a little jacket we purchased in the market for his soon to be born daughter. They then drove us up the steep road to the top of the Old Manali market, so we could take our time walking the 2 km or so back down hill to our hotel.

The walk was fun, as there were many shops and a number of bars along the narrow route. We were having a beer in one when Amit from Bestway called on Marilynn's phone – Chi had forwarded my first update to him from Vancouver, Canada and he was concerned about the guide. It was good we talked, as he had arranged for a guide from Leh to meet us, but I explained that everything was organized in a very good way, that we were doing fine and that we appreciated his concern..

Our final bar was called the Hangout, .where we had the best mojitos I've had outside of Cuba. I had trout again while Marilynn had a lamb burger. The food was excellent. After the long hike downhill to the hotel we dropped into bed exhausted. We finally have snow capped mountains, on three sides of the city.

There will be no internet where we are going for the next week due to the floods taking out the area servers.