Oh no, Manali

We enjoyed lots of downhill, green tea plantations, little traffic and went down to Mandi where the heat overwhelmed us again. There was no other option, but from here on it would go only up, up, up.

We chose a side road, slept in a temple for the first time and found the road flooded by the Beas river the next morning. A guy on the other side of the valley shouted that we should wait... The water level is controlled by a hydro power plant and after an hour we could continue.

The further we went towards Manali, the more touristy it became, some whole villages seem to live from either whitewater rafting or paragliding.
The booking counters along the road are all licensed and numbered, ranging to numbers higher than 1000(!). How can they live from that? We could count the rafting boats on the river on the fingers of one hand that day...

Manali turned out to be our (negative) climax then: In fact, every Indian tourist we met till we got there, told us they would go there - and how beautiful it is... We were shocked when we found ourselves within a massive traffic jam in and around the dusty, dirty city. It was so overcrowded, noisy and just getting on our nerves that staying there was no option - after about an hour we probably had overtaken all cars again which had overtaken us earlier that day. Let’s scram!

We should be lucky to find a lovely and peaceful place with a great host and great cook later that day and decided to take a rest day there :)Read more