still in manali

Day 24

Did absolutely nothing. Started reading Wuthering Heights and tehn realized that i had absolutely no desire to read this while in India. It seems out of place, even wrong to read about victorian high morals in high-strung England while lounging about the himalayas with wild Indian people. We thought about visiting Vashisht, the site of a big temple and hot springs nearby, but then decided not to when it started raining.

Day 25

michal went to a jewelery workshop and made two rings. I meanwhile went to down to the New Manali market and visited a bookstore adn bought VS Naipaul's India: A million mutinies Now. Its really really good. I also spent an hour there drinking chai and talking with the owner about Indian life and politics. Turns out also that Salman Rushdies Satanic Verses is banned in India. He also carried a wide selection of books by Osho, an Indian spritual guru who i started reading and is rather interesting. He's kind of like an new age atheistic theist. He's also dead. And supposedly at his peek he had a commune in Oregon with 365 rolls royces, one for evry day of the week. Spent the day and evening reading and also rod eto Vashist by myself.

more of: Reading, lounging, getting sunburnt, motorcycle riding, tibetan food, friends, cafe, meeting interesting people, austrians, swiss, french, and a hell of a lot of Israelis. Saw the Full Monty at night in the cafe: Dylan's Cafe, the local hip spot.

Day 27

Today! Yes we got off our arses and did our first big TREK! We left at 10am and headed up towards Manu temple and through the mountains to Solang. 12 Kilometers through the hilly jungle. Michal felt sick early on an tried to puke, but we got thru the rough spots and continued on past a pair of old fogies collecting bark samples from really old trees. We made it to a street and walked thru a midieval like village with too many flies and too few people. Lots of underage workers but hey they all seemed happy. Women who are 40 who look 80, quite a common occurence around these parts. But again, a smile no everyone's faces. We got lost a bit but then got directions from an ancient shepard to Solong Valley. They have gigantic plastic balls you sit in an tehn they roll it down the hill. We ate potato burgers in the rain and caught a bus back to town. We slept a bit and ate soup. now we're here. oh we also ate something called Hello to the Queen, which is basically a chocolate chip cookie banana split sundae: delicious. Its cold here now and we're planning departure in two days.