Hotel Broadways Inn Manali

... music that so inspired our driver deep into my bags.

The city of Manali lies at the base of the Himalaya Mountains. From here one can access the Rohtang Pass, which is the gateway to to the high altitude moonscapes of Lahaul, Ley and Ladakh. For centuries, rulers of this area (Manali and Kullu Valleys) could rake off handsome profits from the trade that came over the mountains between Central Asia and the Ganetic Plains. This fact made the territory a source of ...

... in my room-that would just be perfect.

The very pleasant lady with far too much make up, would tap the details into her computer, and after glancing from the picture of a **** aeroplane plane drawn by her 2 year old son, to the sign that says "you don't have to be mad to work here but it helps"; would smilingly announce "you want to go to Manali. And as a bonus its going to take you 16 to 18 hrs on a mini bus".

So 16 to 18 hrs later here I am. On a mini ...

"Save Tibet?" Asks the Italian - pointing to the slogan on Sangye's apron, "how?" Sangye smiles, "By fighting." "Fighting?" "To stay Tibetan. Here, and in Tibet." Sangye replies, and offers the Italian some steamed bread with tumeric and garlic. "Try this. It's good, no?" he asks, turning to the girls in the room - Jennifer, Kate and me - for affirmation. I happily nod, my mouth stuffed with a lightly sweet fried ...

... am glad that we stayed in Old Manali, it was quieter, had little trails leading everywhere, and was relatively cheap! As we were walking up the little path to the hotel, we noticed a sign that said "Bee's Knees Mexican Restaurant" with an arrow. I haven't really talked about food a lot in this blog, but in India besides beef being impossible to get, Mexican food is nowhere to be found. You can find everything else, American, Italian, Thai, but ...

... west of Tibet. We ended up in the Northern most point of our journey in * sm*ll mount*in vill*ge c*lled Leh. We spent * few d*ys rel*xing in the mount*ins *nd riding * Vesp* exploring *ll the Tibet*n vill*ges *nd mon*steries nestled in the moon like l*ndsc*pes of the Him*l*y*ns. After * nice 3 d*y bre*k in Leh we st*rted our long journey South to where I *m tod*y in M*n*li. From here we h*ve * 10 hour bus ride ...

... me with great pride how he had been out and bought the mutton, lamb AND LIVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!! What to do!! I had to eat it as it was mixed in with the other meat and we were being observed constantly and urged to have more!! They were just sooo hospitable and we felt very humbled by their generosity and welcome, and the food was good and very tasty, of course all the ...

... and bartender and toward the close I bought them some shots and then they bought us back shots and we all drank and laughed till closing. We walked back because we could and actually, with all those drinks, we both were very much not sloppy or very drunk. Sunday morning...the big oy! We had planned to wake up early to go to the hot springs. But Karen was so sick, she could barely move. Probably the food, but ...

... light ash to an older Shiva-loving Israeli trekker he took a bit and began to snort it: "No, it's not that!" After the confusion, we put tikkas on our foreheads, the third eye. At our kerosene and spice flavored campsite, our group joked and relaxed, including: "Chello Baba" (roughly translated as Let's Go, Holy Man), "No tension," and teaching us about the differences between biris and charis, as their eyes turned red from too much ...

... ne pridejo, da bi trekali, temvec se pridejo zakajati. No, da bom bolj natacna, tudi na trekinge hodijo. Tu namrec ponujajo enodnevne trekinge v hribe, kjer rastejo plantaze marihuane. Obiskovalci si tovrstno znamenitost tega kraja radi ogledajo, saj si lahko na plantazah sam naberes prvovrstno 'travo' in si jo tudi sam pripravis. Tako si lahko stoprocenten, da je kvaliteta res prvovrstna. Sami vam teh informacij ne moremo povsem potrditi, ker smo eni redkih ...

... at in the evening we saw loads of people walking in that direction, so we followed suit. There was a temple in the forest and a Mela 'festival' of some sort was going on. There were hundreds of people there (see pics). There were a lot of men dressed in traditional outfits performing a dance in the middle of the festivities, there were also these statues of a goddess on a type of stretcher being carried around everywhere. There was live music playing, and a ...