Manali & Dharamsala
- Jul 9, 2016
- 4 min read
Manali
G: Jonas saw us off from the bus station which can unfortunately be likened to a giant toilet. Beautiful. Our fears were realised when indeed the dreaded happened…The most animated Indian family got on our mini bus. The man’s jeans were painted on and he had a fantastic handlebar moustache. Hank, as we named him, liked everything hanging out and proud. We also had a couple other traveller types on the bus and two very jolly monks who I tried to talk to but with no avail we just giggled and waived at each other, lovely!
So this road to Manali is the highest constructed road in the world and man you can feel it. 6000m and sketchy. The term ‘constructed’ road seems to have a wide definition as this road was actually IN construction.
To put you in our shoes, close your eyes and imagine if you were the mars rover. That is precisely what the drive was like, towering red sandstone mountains and valleys, dust, dust and dust. Now this was a night bus so it did drag on a bit and bus tensions hit an all-time high when a traveller had an argument with the Indian family woman because she said she couldn’t breathe when they reclined their chair. Well we thought that this protest was so uncalled for that I impersonated her as Cartman so at least me and Sophie had a laugh. 20 hours is a long time to be semi-off-roading not to mention the dinner stop, two chairs in a tent with 11 men sleeping in there “I’ll just have some tea please”. So awfully British its almost cringe-worthy sometimes.
S: The journey lasted 20 hours and no sleep was had, so we were eager to get to our hotel. After some faffing around we arrived at the Hotel Vintage about 9am and slept until 4pm. Our first journey into the town was a bit overwhelming. Leh had been built around mostly Western tourists and the traffic had been manageable, but Manali was HEAVING with Indian tourists and it was hotter here too.
We weaved our way up to Old Manali through the cars and motorbikes and found the main traveller hotspot with cool cafes and pretty old backstreets.
The People cafe was great and Greg shocked the waiter with the amount of food he ordered and finished...
Getting tired of the noise and danger of the roads to get back to our hotel, we took a detour through the forest that runs between the two districts for 20 ₹ each and it was gorgeous! Dense cedar forests that completely insulated you entirely from the sounds of the road.
On the subject of getting back to our hotel...
The forest was definietly my favourite place in Manali which seemed a victim of its own popularity. The scenery around the town was beautiful and it was easy to see why this would be a hippy paradise, if only it were quieter. Instead it was rammed full of people and covered in rubbish. It was nice to see but didn’t need longer than three days there. So we went to Dharamsala!
Dharamsala
We got to the town via night bus and were hopeful that this time, this time, we would be able to sleep. We wouldn’t be going over famously dangerous passes 6000m up and were on normal roads. Surely this night bus would be a breeze. Ha. The driver was a lunatic. We arrived 2 hours early at 4:30am.
Due to unforeseen circumstances we didn’t have a hotel room until 9am and waited around in the lobby for a few hours before we could get some rest. We had to wake the receptionist up to let us in at 5am, luckily he slept behind the desk (!) so heard us knocking.
Whenever people tell you they’re going to Dharamsala, what they most likely mean is that they are going to Mcleod Ganj. This is where the Dali Lama lives and is a refuge for Tibetans who have fled across the Himalayas. We were looking forward to getting around some of the temples and museums in the area, but it wasn’t to be.
Greg hadn’t been feeling very well, but he had perked up and we decided to go for a wander into the town and get some food. There were loads of nice little places and we found one that did wood oven pizzas so settled down and ordered some tea. Greg started to look a bit queasy and said his stomach wasn’t feeling so good. We got the pizza to go and started to look for a taxi of rickshaw to take us back, no luck, the traffic was so bad they refused to drive.
Greg was getting desperate and needed to get to a bathroom asap. We spotted one at the crossroads and ran inside. I asked if there was a bathroom we could use, the receptionist said “Yes, 3rd floor”, before I’d turned around Greg was literally sprinting up the stairs. He made it, just. Delhi Belly strikes again. We were leaving Dharamsala the next day so spent the rest of the evening in the hotel. It wasn’t all bad though, room service was no extra charge and we settled down with some action movies and that takeaway pizza. Tomorrow, Amritsar!
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