Sterling Resorts Manali

... also got myself an item - a washing sponge! &#8232;On the second day in Sanskrit environment I realized that it's an Indo-European language after all. So for example to sleep is SONA. The second word I learned was BANDER - a monkey! (remember the banderlogs from Maugli? :) I wanted to find all the Sunscrit stuff on the laptop. It took me some 20 minutes to discover what I;m looking for is Devanagari alphabet - &#2350;&#2344;&#2366;&#2354;&#2368; is Manali!<br>

Considered as a wonder for a visitor, Manali is a calm and tranquil hill town, situated 40 kms north of the popular Kullu Valley. Set at an altitude of 1928 m, above the sea level, Manali is an excellent destination for both common tourists as well as the die-hard adventure enthusiasts. <br>Once known as &#8220;Dana Agha&#8221;, Manali was an old village, the signs of that period is even today present across the town. Manali derives ...

... like a day care. The service is provided free to the parents, so that they can work and get on their feet. The BCC has about 40 kids under 3 years of age. Don't know what we were thinking of when we signed up. But 40 kids in different stages of biting, spitting, fighting, pulling hair and all that fun stuff that kids do. The work we did was nothing glamorous - changed nappies, emptied potties, fed the kids ...

... jackets looking like 'Pukka English Gentlemen' (as the Rough Guide puts it). Men dont spit out their pan in the streets, there isn't cow dung everywhere, people dont say the word 'yaaaaar' after everything they say, and you even have trouble finding a masala chai in this place! So, it hardly felt like India. It was kind of like time had stood still here and the pace of life was so much slower nd calmer than in the India that is familiar to me. My fav place in Shimla was the 'Indian ...

... for the pass so we were about even. Rotung La literally translates to 'pile of dead bodies' which is a reference to a number of travelers who have frozen to death up there over the centuries. I was considering not attempting it, thinking if I do get over it, there are going to be higher ones which I may not be able to surmount and then wouldn't even be able to come back. The beaches of Goa started to cross my mind..... It was the first clear day ...

... by insisting on hanging out with them in the kitchen tent instead of reading in our own but they warmed up to us as Jesse and Nir put on an afternoon concert with the backpackers guitar and Indian bamboo flute and I used my pitiful Hindi to try to steal the cooks secrets. The second and third day we continued to climb higher through increasingly misty and steep terrain with fewer and fewer insects and trees. On our second ...

... of both ends. There's nothing worse than throwing up while sitting on the bowl. I just didn't know that the human body could hold that much liquid. . . After a time, I tried to sleep under massive piles of covers, but somehow, I just could not get warm at all. Taking my temperature, I got a reading of 96.6, 2 degrees below normal. I'd been ******** and puking out all my heat for a few hours by then, and the cold rainy weather and lack of sun to warm things up ...

... As we were walking out, we flagged down a jeep that would take us (5 people) to Gramphoo for 500 rupees a head. A bargain for the 8+ hour trip. When we got to the road, however, Gary's friend let us know that he was only going as far as Kaza. So we begged and pleaded and bargained - take the 4 of us for 2,000 rupees. We haggled for 15 minutes and in the end, our man drove away. Thirty seconds later, we're kicking ourselves for not paying the ...

... get excited about it, but then when we taste it it never tastes quite right, there is always some indian spice which has been thrown in - ie indian pizza, indian quiche and indian rice pudding. I find all this rather hard to stomach! Thank god I found muesli out here! Yesterday I had a weird experience in a jewellery shop where the shopkeeper tried to get my address, wouldn't let me leave ...

... at least weather-wise, I have been caught in some hairy situations in the American rockies, and the himalaya is a different story. The elevations of the passes themselves are higher than the highest of the US mountains. . It is for this reason that I will nick another day and night here in peaceful Dharamsala, as one must prepare mentally (rest) and materially, though most of the supplies I need will be found in Manali. I made it here to the big "D" in one ...