The hills are alive...

Friday 8th May
After a couple more days relaxing in Shimla we set off early in the morning on the bus to Manali.....
The bus started off lurching round corners, going breakneck speed down the mountain, and breaking for no man!
This continued pretty much non-stop for ten hours! And its not just us being whingey foreigners... two Indian women were vomiting out the windows... people were being thrown out of their seats... imagine this: its like being on a really fun rollercoaster- you hold on for dear life and its over in a few seconds, well we had to hold on for dear life for 10 hours, not good. researching flights back to our next stop :)

(Views like this kept us going through the last few hours of the bus trip from hell)

As we came into the Kullu Valley, the bus driver had to slow down because of the traffic, and lucky he did because the scenery was sooo beautiful... At the base of the valley there is the Beas River- a gushing, rocky river with green fields and orchards dotted beside it. The orchards and houses then make way for green pine tree covered hills and finally the Himalayas come- peeking over the top.

We arrived into Manali itself about 6:30pm: the air was chilly and it was starting to get dark so we grabbed a rickshaw to take us the 500m or so to the hotel (in our defence we didn't really know it was that close). We hastily dumped our stuff and headed to Johnson's Cafe. Nick had read in the Lonely planet that they did roast Lamb with mint gravy... the chilly air and a lack of meat for the last few days made this sound like heaven... and it was! Johnsons Cafe was revisted many times during our stay in Manali.

Saturday 9th May
We decided to explore the river side park area in Manali town. It was really gorgeous, I won't describe it here are some pictures:

Then we headed back into the markets for some hard bargaining and to scout out what interesting wares Manali had on offer.

(These little kids were begging and wanted a photo with their ten Rupee note)

Because our trip has been pretty fast so far we haven't spent a lot of time bargaining and shopping around. We have a week here in Manali so we have decided to do some shopping. We went into one Pashmina/ textiles place and seriously we must have had IDIOT stamped on our forehead because this guy tried to sell us an extremely beautiful intricately brocaded Pashmina shawl for Rs 6000! which is about AU $200. Every other store we went into the same ones were starting at Rs 3000. Obviously its extremely good quality and hand brocaded but this guy wanted to make an early sale and close for the day I think! Anyway we ended up buying some really beautiful shawls from a little back alley guy who we had fun bargaining with. We overheard his friend whisper to him 'this is not tourist price' so we think we got an ok deal :)

We decided to try the extremely popular Chinese/ Tibetan restaurant in town.... BIG mistake :) I'm sure there were good things on the menu but we ended up with a couple weird things. Mine was supposed to be sweet and sour pork (I'm thinking crispy pork, bit of sauce) no. It was like sweet and sour soup with some slices of roast pork floating around...

Nick ordered some sizzler thing (he was trying to order steak- see above) and ended up with deep fried bits of lamb, deep fried stuffing (yeah, tasted like in the Coles BBQ chickens) and a pile of tough fries and some rice/ noodle thing (that I liked). Anyway we're not going back there :)
(Caramel, our hotel dog)

Sunday 10th May

This morning we walked out to Old Manali in the rain (well it was really only sprinkling). Old Manali is all cute hippy shops selling knitted everything! You can buy a knitted pipe holder for in between smokes, knitted socks and knitted beanies for those cold winter nights when you need to head out for munchies. Everyone is friendly and laid back- more so than new Manali. It would be the perfect spot to rent a little house for a few months and just walk in the mountains and hang out by the river. (this is a fork of the river that runs through old Manali)

(TATA runs India- they do internet, phones, cars, trucks, they now own Jaguar and Landrover... and they do bricks...)
We walked back from old Manali through the forest reserve that runs along by the river it was, again... spectacular!

(Heading into the forest on our way back from old Manali)

And it was in there that we met Choc-top, our forest dog. He hung out with us for a while as we made our way through the marijuana bushes out to civilisation again, we had to climb over some peoples roof because the main gate was locked for some reason. (Manali cream)

Tonight we had dinner at a fancy lodge- I know I know... we could eat for about $5 in India but we are well aware we will be living on Bagguettes in Europe so we're kind of enjoying the odd expensive meal here (about $25 this one was). Nick got a fabulous local trout cooked to perfection and I had some Lasagne with the most intense garlic bread ever :)


Monday 11th May
Today we headed out early (hehe.. 9:30am!) to organise our trip out to Solang Valley to hit the slopes for some zorbing! (Solang Valley)

We had trouble getting a taxi because there was a big rally in Kullu for the upcoming elections, as far as we're aware most of India finished voting on the 7th of May but Himachal Pradesh votes 2 days before the results are announced (you'd think this might make them semi important for some last minute campaigning). We have been following the election here closely in the papers it helps to give you something to talk to the locals about, other than the Indian Premier League of course.
Anyway we finally got a taxi at about 1:30 and headed out through the valley to Solang Nullah. During winter its a popular ski resort but in the summer its home to Zorbing, Paragliding, horse riding, quad bike riding, posing with giant Angora bunnies, and giant trampoline things.

(men holding the giant angora bunnies--- Tang check it out... now thats a bunny!)

We came for Zorbing and that was crazy fun. You squeeze into this big plastic ball in through a little tunnel, then strap yourself inside into this little harness thing. Nick and I were in one together. Then you get pushed down this hill and two Indian guys run along beside you yelling out to the crowd to get the hell out of the way! Its real safe and stuff... We started bouncing heaps (well it felt like it) and each time you bounce you slam a little harder into the ground on the down side :)
(Zorbing balls)
Next I was kinda lured into the Paragliding thing, everything in India is just so cheap to do... well maybe some safety measures are cut back on but I'm still alive anyway.
I don't know if anyone has done Paragliding before but basically you have to jump off a cliff, actually not just jump you have to run off a cliff. At Solang its more of a realy steep slope than a cliff but you climb way up there, strap everything on (including your Indian pilot) then run towards the edge and keep running as the parachute kinda lifts you up- in theory- a guy did it just before me and they just kept running and bounced down the slope. But I got off ok and it was fabulous, floating along and the view was spectacular! Now the landing was another thing! I thought I'd done ok- skidded along a bit and plonked on my bum, then a lady who I was looking at gave me a horrified look and my 'pilot' landed smack on top of me and pushed me over on my right side... now i have a sore shoulder and wrist and thumb but other than that I'm fine and I'm just happy I didn't land in the mud like some people. It was so worth it!
(Me Paragliding!!)
Stay tuned for more adventures in Manali!