Trip to Manali III : In the Wonderful Land of Snow

It’s amazing to be there. Manali… named after Great Manu. To be frank I am not so sure about the history, because I was told two feng shui idols as king (Kullu) and queen (Manali) were the old rulers of that place. Please refer to any authentic history books or websites for original information.

2nd July by 9.00 we reached sterlings. Luckily our driver got a complimentary accommodation in the hotel. Sterlings has only two suit rooms and we were lucky enough to get one. We had a wonderful balcony and had an excellent view of snow filled mountains, the Himalayas. Chilled breeze passed by welcome us to that beautiful land. As expected the complete base of the mountains are occupied by resorts. By afternoon we decided to use the free sightseeing provided by the hotel. Our cab took us to through the busy roads of Manali.

We first went to Buddhist monastery . That was the first time I saw a monastery and a priest was performing some rituals there by beating a drum and reciting some kind of sloka (I don’t know what its equivalent in Buddhism). When we came out a lady was behind Amoolya to try the Kashimiri and Manali dresses she had with her. She was an excellent photographer as well. Ammu preferred to wear Kashimiri dress and the lady took some photographs of her and in the meanwhile I too was tempted to wear the dress.

Later we went to Hadimba Temple, it was so crowded and we were really not in a mood to stand in that queue to get the darshan. We took some photographs there and walked back to our cab. Then on, the merchants started inviting us to the shops to look on their shawls. They keep on repeating about a chinku stuff. They were talking non stop about the resale value of it. Price was too little for us to afford, Seven Thousand rupees. We got some shawls and came back to the hotel.
Next day Ravi (our driver from Chandigarh) took us to Rohtang Pass. It was an overwhelming experience. On the way we hired dress to be used in the ice for 400 Rs. I wanted to do some skiing there. One option is to try skiing ourselves or hire a trainer for a whole day. After quite a bit of bargaining we got a trainer and skiing equipments and continued our journey to the peak. We crossed mountains one after another and finally we started ascending a steep one. Ammu was kidding me that we are gonna reach the top of it. At that time I found it as a joke and then I realized that it was a fact. We reached the top of it. Trainer told us that we have to climb a mountain to reach real snow point.

I was sure that we cannot walk the whole way. We hired two horses for thousand rupees. It was scary initially as we climbed the steep slope and then it became interesting. We played in snow for some time and we tried skiing a bit. Trainer guy was very friendly. He was very interested to play in the snow and was forcing us to make a snow man. It was fun making the snow man and we fixed our sunglass. It was looking so cute. After all the fun, we climbed down the mountain in the horse. This was more light and we were enjoying each moment. It was almost evening when we reached back to the hotel.

Next day we went to Manali castle, Nicholas Roerich museum and Jana Falls. We went to the top of Jana falls and it was just marvelous. We had food there in the base of Jana falls which comprises of red rice, dhal and some chapathis and sabjis all without masala and traditional Manali style. In the evening we went Mall road to purchase. Meanwhile Ammu missed the purse which had all our money. We got petrified and called up Ravi. We couldn’t tell him what actually the reason was; we rushed to car and found the purse inside it. Ravi was slightly upset that we suspected him. It happened because of natural reasons, we don’t know him and Ammu was scared that any person would take an advantage of such a situation. Anyways, I was upset about it too, I decided to treat him in the hotel. Ammu got a gift for his fiancé and handed it over to him

We asked him to share our table for dinner and we literally had a feast with different varieties of chicken. Next day morning we came back to Chandigarh. Ravi took us to a lake there were we met his fiancé and she gifted Ammu with a beautiful pair of Punjabi Shoes and gave me a Photo of their Guru. From there we boarded our train back to Delhi. In Delhi our driver Chottelal picked us from the station and dropped us at IBIS at Gurgaon. Next day morning, yes 7th July (My birthday) we came back to Bangalore.