Vacres Manali Resorts

... 14km of white water rafting! In which twice i almost drowned and only thankful to a big dutch guy for saving me! Rafting was a great experince and would def do it again even thou it is kinda scary.

8/07/2009
Today we woke up kind of late but decided to get stcukl in straight away we booked a zorbing session and a horse ride into the mountains! The zorbing was a pretty ...

... would be the ideal sources of advice. We wrote with our conundrum: we love Dharamshala, but we're eager to see Tanzania. Her response was simple and eloquent - she was, she said, excited to meet us and show us Tanzania, and hoped to in the future. But having done safaris all her life, she's never grown tired of them. If we were to come to Tanzania for only ten days, with the tiny budget we have, we would leave with two regrets ...

... precariously. After lunch, we ascended the Rotang Pass, and I was amazed to see green on the other side. It had been a long time since I had seen trees, and so I was thrilled as the greenery became even thicker as we descended. The landscape reminded me a lot of the Alps, with steep rocky mountains covered with grasses and cedars. When we arrived in Old Manali, we actually found Ram and Vicky (who had taken a helicopter from Kaza the day ...

... of a waterfall instead. I put my 'Om Namah Shivaya' mantra to use many times, and I wasn't even close to being scared. Yet. Before reaching Manali, we had to go across Rohtang Pass, which is only open for traffic for a few months every year. It is also where every single person in India go to experience snow for the first time. It was packed with Indians on ponies and many other tourists. Unfortunately the road was blocked for a whole hour ...

Yeah, we're in Manali! Yesterday we were all feeling alot more rested so Me and Joe went up to see a waterfall whilst Jared rested in bed. The walk there was really nice, through the forst down to new Manali, then across the river to Vashist and through the village out to the waterfall. The real vilage, eg where people live was realy cool, and the walk to the base of the fall was all pretty easy.When we got out to the the waterfall ...

... chai, Dayalu gave me the keys to Rocinante--I'll be checking the weather in hopes of riding back to Delhi to make repairs on the bike, hang around with Balu and Laura at the Bullet Wallas for a night or so drinking beer and trading motorcycle stories, and then out to the cool deserts of Rajastan. Cool desert at this time of year, but burning hot in a month or two. If there is time, I will revisit the south before I finally have to go home and greet another Boston spring.

... squabbles between a stubborn German old lady and an English couple kept us entertained between toilet stops which were hilarious in themselves. We arrived safely in Manali and found accommodation and booze with our English friends. Manali is a gorgeous little village nestled in a valley and we spent a lovely few days chilling out with Jim and Margarida. But then we had to say goodbye....on to Dharamasala!

Today we took a trip to 3 monasteries close to Leh in Ladakh. What amazing places to visit, all hundreds of years old and populated by monks who come straight out of picture books (till you talk to them as we did in the Nubra valley - more on that later). We started in Thikse, one of the largest monasteries in the area for morning prayers. I don't go to church often and definitely don't get up at 6AM to be there at 7AM when prayers ...

... required to have special permissions from the Chinese to even visit their homeland. That is if they are lucky enough to be granted that, even. Most are just denied outright. I have heard many of their stories, and one cannot help but feel their despair at the seemingly impending loss of their cultural heritage, not to mention the very land upon which their ancestors walked. Hundreds of buddhist temples have been destroyed, or turned into offices of storehouses ...

... to ask about getting to Dharamsala. Pretty soon we were seated in the back seat of an almost-new nippy little car. It was a model manufactured by the Indian giant Tata and seemed to have been based on a Nissan Micra or similar. It was, without exaggeration, the cleanest, least dented, most modern car I had seen in India. Just before we pulled away the driver turned to face us and said 'If the police stop us then you say you are my friends".

Within minutes of setting ...