The Orchard Green Manali

Manali turned out to be packed even more than I saw it the last time. I was hungry, but somehow the Chopsticks was not open yet, and the second place where I eat last time was selling the local holiday's sweets, alike many other small shops. As for me, I needed some normal food, so I took a cab to Vashishat, hoping to find something there. 
Vashishat proved to be something in the middle between Old and New Manali. It's quite remote - only ...

... name from Manu Rishi, who lived here and wrote the first constitution of India called “Manu Samriti”. In olden days, the present town of Manali was the transaction point between the traders of Hoshiarpur and Kangra and also the traders of Yarkand, Smarkand, Tash Kand, Ladakh, Zanskar and Western Tibet. Manali is blessed with several gifts like a beautiful landscape, dense thick pine and deodar forests, ice-capped ...

... afternoon snack, played with them, sang nursery rhymes and made sure they didn't kill one another. When the kids fought, sometimes, its like in the NHL, (okay, maybe that's stretching it, but that came to mind one afternoon) we let them have it out until it got a little rough before separating them. Even then, the feisty ones were usually clawing and waiting to give that final hit. As Rajiv said, these kids ...

... House' which was a bit lik an old man pub at home, albeit with waiters dressed in bottle-green military-style uniforms with big top hats! The coffee was a bit dubious though, even though there was a sign in the cafe saying 'A fine type, a fine coffee. Both are indian'. We are now in Manali, a place that I love even after just one day here. Again, the landscape has totally changed as we are in the Kullu Valley and so has the climate - lovely, warm heat during the day and chilly ...

... here was that the water that fills the hole is HOT! I mean so hot that I had to mix in the river water before I could touch it. It was a fun little game of making pools and getting everything just right......before they colapse inward and everything I worked so hard for vanished in an instant.

... we stopped at a windy, h igh alpine meadow beside a teahouse of sorts which is the equivalant of a Himalayan "Bed and Breakfast." The father of the tea house family heard the afternoon "concert" and insisted we join his family in their tent after dinner for a repeat performance. We were glad for the invite because it was raining and cold and while we had no fire or dry place to sit together they had a wood stove ...

... t help. Also, twitchy muscles and body aches told me that my electrolytic balance was gone. I've had a couple of doozies before and medicated them myself, but one cannot hydrate or take medicine if it's gone in 5 minutes in a convulsive retch! After a time, I realized I was in trouble--dropping temps, close to hypothermia, serious loss of fluid with no way to replace them, and unable even to carry a fever to try to kill the bug. Dayalu and family were worried, and ...

... Mansarovar lake on the western highlands of Tibet, the river Sutlej slices through several Himalayan ranges, carving out some of the deepest gorges in the world. Through magnificent canyons, fields, hamlets, and pristine sandy beaches, the river makes its panoramic passage. Discover the secrets of the river as you follow its course www.cedarheightsresorts.com

... then started taking photos of me. We made a swift exit but annoyingly he got a photo. Right I'm going to attempt putting some photos on here. Last time it took 1 hour to put on 4 photos! After that we're off to the tailors to pick up our salwar suits - it is all so quaint and old fashioned. There are lots of tibetan nuns and monks walking around town too which adds to the unusualness of the place.

... it was so hazy you couldn't see much, certainly not the higher snow-clad peaks that one can normally see at other times of the year from one of the hills nearby. I really wanted to go further north and see the Himalayas proper - but the thought of taking the bus (a minimum ten hour ride up to somewhere like Manali) was a negative one. I really had made up my mind up about Indian buses - and was unsure of my stomach's ability to get through long durations. Travelling ...