Manali

Day 22

There must be same mistake on the number of days because I arrived in India on May 8 and today is May 30, which means that today is day 22. So this is Day 22, a little backwards time travel.

To make a long story short, we left Tattapani yesterday again at five in the morning. It was cold, but the weather quickly rose as we descended into a valley full of small farm villages with simple minded folks wearing bandanas. We took a wrong turn early and rode 30 kilometers up a hilly road full of annoying potholes, only to have to come back down the same potmarked road half an hour later.

The rest of the ride was enjoyable, gorgeous weather and idyllic scenery. We stopped a few times for chai and fried eggs and reached Manali before evening. We took a room at the Krishna Guesthouse for 200 rups, and theres even a hot shower! Manali is divided into an Old and a New city, and we're in the old which is much higher up and less crowded than the Old. There are tons and tons of Israelis here, Israeli food, signs in Hebrew, crocks, dreadlocks and hashish, all marks of Israel.

Last night we ate Tibetan food which is basically Chinese food but not quite as good and a hell of lot more spicy. It was cold at night and I snuck two woolen blankets from the uninhabited adjoining room to supplement our own.

In the morning we drank Chai, Michal got her legs waxed, and I finished Midnights Children, which was really damned good. I then traded it a the local cafe for Arudhati Roy's A God of Small Things, which I read for the past couple hours in a small cozy nook I found for myself in the mountains away from all the tourists and vendors. I read Indian literature against the backdrop of the Himalayas: very cool.

A man approached me who owns a guesthouse nearby and we talked for a while. His name is Chaan and he runs Chaan's Guesthouse. He charges Indians more though I couldnt get him to explain why.

There is the sound of someone trying to learn Stairway To Heaven on guitar coming from somewhere above me now.

Tomorrow we're going to hike for 12 kilometers, but today we're taking it easy. I cruised around a bit on the motorcycle, though the traffic around Manali makes this unenjoyable.

Theres a lot of adventure sports around this town like: rafting, mountaineering, fly fishing, rapling, paragliding, skiing (yes even in summer) and cycling. I think I may take a mountaineering course later on, after Michal leaves, but thats just a random sort of thought that will probably not stick as I have never ever been interested in mountaineering, and I may even have a fear of heights.