A January in Manali

"Why do you want to take such a risk of going to Manali? It is snowing heavily and landslides are reported all over the news" ... 21st century news channels report much more than what is needed and make our parents worry, sometimes unreasonable. Why should I spare myself, I was also worried about the cold.

"C'mon, you are not going to freeze there. People with similar skin depth and fat content spend their lives in such places." ... Words of wisdom uttered in extreme frustration. It is so easy to trivialize someone's fear.

Nevertheless, I packed even the last piece of my rags (on expert's advice, makes one feel comfortable). We somehow managed to kabadofy tickets in a luxury super delux two seater bus. You know why, it is a HOT honeymoon location in winters. It might be easy to stand naked in winds of alaska as compared to bear the slow chilled thin air breeze coming from cracks of the train or a super delux two seater bus window. No blanket can save you from the agony. But it was fun.

The thought of getting frozen in cold vanished as soon as I saw the snow laden peaks beautifully lit with golden x-rays, ofcourse sun-rays stupid. We tried to capture some from moving bus but wasn't possible. We reached Manali at roughly 6:00 AM. It was quite cold due to strong winds but manageable. After some search, we crashed into Hotel Beas View. Refreshed, we set out to enjoy the awesome sunny weather and valley covered with a blanket of fresh snow. All of us were pretty excited to enjoy smash-a-snow-ball bash. We decided to wander first and enjoy the sights nearby. Rahul decided to spare our pockets and became our guide for the trip. We first went to see the one and only temple of Bhima's wife Hidamba. She being a ghoul, it is no surprising to see walls decorated with stuffed animal heads and fresh blood near "Bali-Vedi". All said, we were more excited to smash each other with snow balls. It was fresh, it was white, it was soft, it was clean, it was god damn fun.

We wanted to go to Solang valley for skiing but roads were completely blocked with snow. We had no other choice but to roam around in Manali for the first day. Meanwhile, we decided to go to Dharmshala after Manali and straightened out the logistics with Antrek Tours and Travels. I would never recommend you to avail his services. Read-on to find out the reason. It blacked-out very early in the evening and we spot snowing on peaks. It gets quite cold when it starts to snow.

In good spirit, we decided to end the day here and crash in hotel after some more wandering. We decided to make it quite early in the morning to capture golden peaks. Unfortunately, the warmth of bed did not let us open our eyes on time. But we finally managed to capture a couple nice composition. Soothe yourself and read-on.
















A clear sky boosted our energy and with bright sun we were sure to be able to skii. We hired a Maruti 800 (:-D) to take us to Solang Valley. Mid-way we realized that it is almost impossible to reach Solang due to slippery roads. We rented some skiing-gear and marched to a village nearby. There was a decent stretch of snow to satisfy our desire to ski. Unfortunately, the shoes were quite large for me and were almost covering my knees. I tried a little but soon realized that it would be easy for me to crack a bone or two. So, I decided to run rather than ski :-P.



After enjoying skiing, we visited Duggadh to see old Manali fort and Nicholas Roreich's museum. The guy had built a very nice summer home on a sweet, romantic hill-top. His collection coins, exotic pottery, musical instruments and paintings from different cultures was quite exotic and antique. Apparently he was a Russian who finally married an Indian, Devika Rani, and settled in Manali. She is very a graceful and charming lady. See for yourself.

After spending almost an hour we went to see the Naggar Haveli where King of Manali used to live. It is completely made of wood with heavy carvings. Apparently, it has become a commercial place now as a hotel or place to shoot Bollywood sagas. We were unlucky not to be able to closely see the temple inside the haveli. Its wood work is exquisite and a pleasure to admire. But do remember that leather in any form is not allowed in the temple premises.

Done with Naggar Haveli, we head back to our hotel rooms as we had already booked bus tickets for Dharmshala for the same night. None of us had anticipated how troublesome could be this night. We had done the bookings from Antrek Tours and Travels and we were informed that bus would reach somewhere around 5 o'clock in the morning. We were quite pleased with the timings as we could finish sight seeing the same day and head back to Noida. The bus started around 7:00 PM and everything was going as planned. Around 2 o'clock in the morning, the conductor woke us up and asked to get down saying this is Dharmshala. We were quite surprised with it and tried to converse, looked around squinting. Since, we were left with no option, we decided to get down.

All of a sudden it started to freeze and everything was damn cold, and to make things more difficult it started raining. Luckily we found shelter close to a shop to save ourselves from getting wet. There was nobody around and talking to all taxi folks was hopeless. We soon found out that we are almost 15-20 kms away from Dharmshala and the goddamn bus went in different direction. Also, even after offering handsome amount, no taxiwala was interested in going to Dharmashala at this hour because it was snowing heavily. We were happy to hear the news as we would get chance to play in fresh snow and even more to see a snowfall. But also sad that we need to some how reach Dharmshala or else find a place to dry ourselves. We stayed at the place till 3:30 AM in the morning until a Himachal Roadways bus salvage us. It was still snowing on the way and driver was able to drive 65 seater roadways bus. Technically, the tyres were skidding rather than rolling. One of the helper occasionally use to wipe the snow on the windshield as it was blocking driver's view, and he had to do so in moving bus because the road was slippery enough for the bus to slide down the hill.

Some how we reached the bus-stop around 5:00 AM. We soon realized that we won't be able to find hotel room at this hour and waited at the bus stop for sun to rise. We started moving towards McLeodganj and got revived with a beautiful look of clean sky and rising sun. We crashed in a cheap hotel, managed to have some breakfast and checked out within few hours. We were excited to go to McLeodganj where it had snowed heavily last night. We took a Maruti Omni cab from Dharmshala.

McLeodganj is quite densely populated with Hindus, Tibetians and lots of foreigners. It is the holy place of Dalai Lama where he visit quite often to preach Buddhism, and hence, the reason for so many foreigners and tibetians. I had some eerie feeling about the place because the tibetians and hindus don't mix up well together and they have physically separated colonies. We did not spot any of them in each other's colony.

We were welcomed with snow balls as soon as we entered the area and to our surprise opposite sexes were heavily involved in it. After a while we realized its not just snow balls they were enjoying, eve-teasing is right description for it and apparently, guys were the victims too. It was rare to see but we did enjoy it as well. One point I would like to stress on is Tibetian chicks were hot!!!

We kept roaming around the accessible roads enjoying the fresh snow, clouds and clicking once in a while. We managed to take some panoramic shots as well. As expected from beginners, we did not switch of the dates on the photographs which you will find little disturbing in panoramas. McLeodganj has a nice waterfall which serves as a summer retreat. At this time we could only see it from a distance because it was bit risky to reach there due to melting snow.

Since, there wasn't much for sight seeing and the infrastructure had gone topsy-turvy after snowfall, we decided to leave for Noida the same night. Also, awfully costly hotel rooms was one of the reasons too. We had some snacks in a tibetian restaurant on the way back and took a roadways bus for Dharmshala in the evening.

My shoes were completely drenched and I decided to dump them after buying a pair of slippers. Before leaving the place we did enjoy some fresh fruits and the lovely sunset. Rahul took a whole bunch of pictures as sun was about to leave after completing its job for the day, and we headed back to Noida.

Special mention

On the way back we stopped on some dhabba at night to attend nature's call and stretch a little. We saw a family who seemed to be coming from a marriage. The groom was all loaded with garlands, of course not of flowers, but of indian currency. What caught our eyes was the shimmering lights all over his head. All excited seeing such different outfit, I went down to take a snap. My hands were shaking with sleep and cold, so couldn't click it well.