Mooching in Manali

Modification made to the bus

We spent the next hour waiting to see what would happen while the responsible parties argued, presumably about whose fault it was, although it's hard to imagine there being too much disagreement. We were envisaging having to wait for the three hours or so we had travelled from Shimla, while a replacement bus was sent for us, but in the end Indian-style common sense prevailed and we set off again with no windscreen. Several rows from the front we were getting dust in our eyes, so I was glad to see the driver had taken the safety precaution of wearing a pair of sunglasses. It actually wasn't too bad without the windscreen but when we stopped for lunch, the true nature of their plans because clear: all the luggage was swapped with a bus heading in the other direction and the passengers from that nice intact bus were herded onto ours. I felt a bit sorry for them but I was pleased to have a windscreen again.

Mountains behind New Manali

Only about thirty seconds after we got off the bus in Manali, Joanne complained that it looked like a horrible place. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. I had been expecting a really quiet mountain town full of western tourists, but it was even busier than Shimla, there was no sign of westerners, and it was very polluted with exhaust fumes. The Lonely Planet has advised against staying in New Manali, where the bus had dropped us, so we took an auto-rickshaw up the hill to Old Manali. It certainly looked more that part the further up the hill we got, but I started worrying that it looked a bit too touristy. We checked into a hotel with a nice view of some mountains, which was a bit more expensive that we had hoped for at Rs400, but the room was very nice and we decided just to spoil ourselves after all the transport hell we had suffered lately.

Indian breakfast. Yum!

We had some really nice food in the lovely outside dining area where we were served by an extremely friendly waiter. He must be Nepali, not Indian, we bitchily joked to each other. But maybe the Indians were different here after all. When he returned with the bill he asked where we were from and, after telling him Scotland, I asked if he was from Manali. No, I'm from Nepal, he said.

View from our room

View from our room

After getting over the shock of having our prejudices confirmed, we ventured out into the town. There isn't really much to Old Manali and it is far too touristy. It's not my kind of place at all actually but, at least for Joanne, there were hardly any Indians. In fact it's just another bland standard-issue backpacker resort. All the same food we've been seeing in those kind of places since we started our trip and no real sign of the native culture. We were not going to be trekking because Joanne's feet had still not recovered from the trek in Nepal and, as far as I could see, if you aren't planning to trek, the only other reason people were in Old Manali is that it seems to be absolutely acceptable to smoke joints openly in all the bars and restaurants.

We did find quite a nice bar called Shesh Besh, playing great music, where they have backgammon on all the tables, but it was absolutely swarming with flies. Apparently it's just the time of year. The staff were really nice: Nepalis again. The food was even more disappointing around Old Manali that it had been in the rest of India. Who would have thought you can spend five weeks in India and never eat any spicy food? Quite bizarre.

Unusual way to promote a shop

The next day we bumped into Dominik again. He didn't have anything good to say about Dharamsala but he said Macleodganj, where the Tibetan government in exile is based, was OK. Just like Manali really, he said. Then he said that he was going to Leh as soon as possible because he didn't like Manali, quite shockingly, as there were too many Israelis. I think it sounded even worse coming from a German. It's true that there were a lot of Israelis there; the keyboards in the internet cafes all have Hebrew characters on them. In fact most of these ultra-backpackery places, where there's obviously a lot of drugs, seem to attract large groups of young Israelis. I suppose mostly they are probably just finished their national service and wanting to go a bit wild, not really caring where they are.

A bin! In India!

We said goodbye to Dominik and then spent the next few days not doing very much. I did lots of blogging and Joanne did lots of reading. One day the waiter asked me what I was typing about and he seemed very pleased when I said I was writing about Nepal. The weather remained pleasant and the hotel owner told us it was far too hot. When we said we had come from Varanasi where it was about 45C he explained that mountain people like him can't handle the temperature if it goes near 30C, and it was only 26C. We were nice and cool.

Half-built pool hall

The ouside dining area and pool hall behind

Eventually we got a ticket for a bus to Macleodganj. Infuriatingly the buses only went at night, which we were certain meant another night of no sleep, then a day or two trying to recover. On these mountain roads there is no way you can sleep.

written by  The Happy Couple on June 26, 2009 from Manali, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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