Our travel plans are generally made at the end moment as we decided to explore Himachal Pradesh, the place blessed with the most varied landscape. With no fixed itinerary or any hotel booking, we took off on a journey to get close to the Himalayas.

Our first stop was in Manali (we will take you through each place we visited in several parts).

Journey from Mumbai to Delhi

We were fortunate enough to get train tickets in spite of booking just 4 days before traveling. I clearly remember the countless number of times we refreshed the Indian Railways reservation web page to check if we were on the confirmed list :)

We managed to get RAC tickets (Reservation against cancellation) on Golden Temple Mail where one sleeper had to be shared by two people, and the agent charged us Rs 900 for that, which was too much for no proper reserved tickets. But that was barely an issue as the excitement started to build up.

The crowded Mumbai Central station, so many people sleep on the platforms waiting for to get tickets or to board the train.

The train getting loaded with goods before the train departs at 9.30 pm.
More passengers started trickling in from various stations, and if you have traveled by Indian railways before you would know how crowded and chaotic it can get. The pantry guys are regularly walking up and down the aisle selling food and refreshments, shouting chai every time they walked by.

The journey got really tiring in the afternoon due to the scorching sun and hot breeze coming by, especially when we passed Rajasthan. The picture below shows a small girl begging on the tracks in Rajasthan. We were waiting to reach Delhi now, we were quite drained out. The train arrived at Nizamuddin station around 7.30 pm, and soon we were on our way to a friend's place in Gurgaon to spend the night.

Idyllic Locales and the Traditional Dance of Manali

A night's rest was enough to get the excitement levels up again. We didn't waste any time in Delhi, and boarded the bus to Manali late afternoon from Connaught Place. We got the tickets for Rs 550 from a friend who works for a travel agency in Manali. He also sorted our accommodation in Old Manali for Rs 300 a night.:)

The bus started at 4.30 pm and made several stops before it actually hit the highway. It always takes time to get out of the city also due to heavy traffic. But it was a decent ride, that takes around 16 to 17 hours to reach Manali bus depot. It was a chilly morning, the sun rises early in summers, so by 6am its quite bright.

We were in the mountains, the fresh air, pure water, green pastures, apple orchards, and more, I was feeling relaxed already! Everything around us transformed into beautiful gifts from above. Even the fat and furry monkeys on the windy roads to Manali looked so cute. On reaching the depot we took a rickshaw up to Old Manali, which is much more chilled out and has many affordable guest houses as compared to New Manali. Since the road to Old Manali is uphill, the rickshaw charged us Rs 70 to drop us till the guest house.

The Guest House is run by Prakash, a friendly guy who always wears a smile on his face. The room was spacious with hot water facility, that's a must because no way you want to bathe in ice cool water. It was time to have a cup of hot tea and catch up on sleep before we venture out.

Later on we headed to Manu Rishi Temple which was a short walk away from the guest house. Prakash told us that the village was having its annual fair where the locals dance, smoke and get drunk. On the way we witnessed the ethnic side of Manali, the old wooden houses partially made on stilts and small doors with designs drawn around it, that sure made a pretty picture. The pagoda-styled Manu Rishi Temple dedicated to sage Manu, the local deity. Everyone had gathered close to the temple - locals and tourists - to watch the colorful and rhythmic dance performance called 'Naati' accompanied by traditional musical instruments. In Himachal the tribes and local communities love to dance, it forms an integral part of their vibrant culture.

Dancers, traditionally only men, join their hands and move in steps to varying rhythms. They were dressed in tunics, churidaars, stoles and decorated head gear, and in the centre were people playing drums, shehnai or Indian Oboe and many more instruments. Even tourists were encouraged to join in the fun! Some of the locals, who were quite drunk, were swaying to the beats and few of them were dancing with swords. You can watch the video below to see the local tribes performing Naati.


I don't know what this instrument is called but it sure made a powerful sound and is used on many occasions in Himachal. Clyde posing with the locals along side the idols of local deities. They love to be clicked!
There were couple of food stalls selling Momos, Chowmein, and Indian sweets; momos are widely available in Himachal, because of the Tibetan influence. We had plate of those delectable momos and proceeded to see the temple. The temple had detailed woodwork on its entrance and interiors, even the temple roof was made from wood. This is the idol of Manu Rishi. There were idols of different deities including Hanuman, Ganesha, Shiva, Krishna and many more.
After all the action it was time to eat dinner, we went to Moon Dance cafe in Old Manali, where the food was not good. We ordered for Salsa with chips and comes is French Fries with some red sauce. That was the first and last time we ate at Moon Dance.

The Israeli Factor

After spending a whole day in Old Manali, we realised that the place is dominated by cliquey Israelis, that's the reason why they are well-catered as compared to Indian tourists. There were many instances where we felt like strangers in our own country. Every restaurant serves Israeli food, there are shops with things written in Hebrew, its a haven for Israelis, who in order to escape the gruesome reality in Israel travel in large numbers to various parts of India.

Everyone is welcome in this country, but the attitude you carry in a different country makes a lot of difference. We saw few of them carrying air-guns and shooting at a bottle in a guest house opposite to ours. Its a scary scenario when you see the big picture.

Away from the Chaos

Moving on the next day we rose early to go for a 3 kms trek to Goshal village, that's beyond Manu Rishi temple. The streets were empty with only handful of locals doing their morning chores. Look what we bumped into, the long-haired bovine - wild yak - being washed by his owner. So Clyde and myself decided to pose next to it, the story is that the owner insisted that Clyde held his horns but the yak refused by shaking his head violently. But somehow Clyde managed to say cheese before being kicked. The nervous look on my face says it all! :) We heaved a sigh of relief after the picture was clicked. Imagine nibbling on freshly plucked cherries early morning, then we met this cherry vendor who had just gathered bunch of cherries from the trees. We paid him Rs 20 and he willingly gave us decent amount of cherries. They were delicious! We walked towards Manurishi temple, after which you will see a signboard pointing towards Goshal village. It was simple straight route through the picturesque Deodar forest and the majestic pine trees. The trek is alongside River Beas that gushes along its rocky course, it was lovely, away from the hustle and bustle of Old Manali, which is cluttered with guest houses, restaurants, travel agencies, money changers, Internet cafes, souvenir shops, etc. Manali was full of big size, beautiful roses, I had never seen roses of such enormous sizes before, and they had such sweet fragrance too. The majestic pine trees providing some shade to passer-bys. Fractals are found in abundance in nature. The pine cone is a perfect example of that, we came across whole lot of them dried and scattered on the path. The pretty pink and blue flowers caught through the cameras macro mode.
The elusive lizard totally camouflaged against the rock. I took several shots before finally getting a clear image.
There were mountain sheep grazing in the forest and horses strolling, the rural side is definitely much more happening than the concrete Manali. Caught in the spider's web, aren't we all caught in a web?
After walking for 1 1/2 kms we could see Goshal village at the end of the mountain, and one villager passing by told us that its just another village. Since one of our friend was joining us, we had to return to the guest house. This was the view from that spot, you can see Rohtang Pass in the background towards the right. From Goshal one can also trek further to Solang Valley, that offers view of glaciers and snow-capped peaks. I only got to know this while writing the post, otherwise we could have trekked up to Solang. Alas...

The only food that are stomachs had were the fresh cherries, after the long walk we had to get some breakfast. This time we stopped at Shiva cafe, that was another expensive place, breakfast for 4 costed nearly Rs 500, that was way too much! Cafes in Manali are expensive and they mostly have the same touristy menu as well. The afternoon was leisurely spent in the guest house and we ventured out in the evening to Hadimba Temple in New Manali, around 1-2 kms away.

By the time we reached there it was already dark, so we couldn't get a full shot of this beautiful temple. I was quite impressed with the architecture, it had a four-tiered pagoda shaped roof with intricately carved woodwork of mythological figures at the entrance. Built in 1533, the temple is dedicated to Hadimba, wife of Bhim, one of the Pandava brothers. Its believed that she meditated here, so the temple was constructed in her honour. Photography is prohibited inside the temple, there is no idol only footprints of Hadimba on a stone. Huge footprints too, make you want to believe that mythological figures were huge in size! The temple is built in middle of the Dhungri forest, but there are cemented steps leading to the temple.
Outside the temple there was a woman who dresses up tourists in ethnic outfit of Himachal. She insisted to put on the outfit for me, "Gudiya, main Rs 10 main tayar karongi tujhe" (doll, I will dress you up in this outfit for Rs 10). Since she was so sweet, I agreed to be dressed like a Himachal woman.:) I was made to wear this traditional outfit at least 3 times on the trip.:) From there we moved on to a riverside cafe, just across the bridge in Old Manali called Green Valley View. That was the best place we've eaten at in Manali, good view, tasty food and more importantly affordable! It was freezing outside but we were getting use to the cold.

We ordered for one Olive Pizza that was oozing with cheese that set us back Rs 80, we bought a bottle of Apple wine for Rs 200 that went very well with the food and the ambiance. Pizza was followed by Chicken and Veg Sizzler and cheesecake to complete the meal. Although cheesecake we bought from the German bakery, there are plenty of them around in Manali.
Next day we go to the hot water springs in Vashisht, wheat fields in Manali and much more...