Travelling in Himachal in June – 2007
Shimla >> Manali >> Rohtang >> Chandratal >> Ki/Kibber/Tabo >> Kalpa >> Shimla
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For next few posts, it is going to be less words and more pictures.
Despite the touristy looks of Manali, its mountain peaks gave me an indication that there is much to discover around the town. We spent just two days there, one of them wandering in the town and the second, exploring. In those eight hours we spent freewheeling beyond Manali, we discovered some spellbinding beauty that wasn’t discovered by tourists. same
Solang is visited by many people; is touristy and has many activities to amuse its visitors.
We rented a bike a rode towards Solang Nala north of Manali on the second day. The meadows of Solnag Nala were touristy enough that I would rather speak less of it here.
We biked to Solang Nala from Manali
The road ends at a place where the Indian Army is working on a tunnel to Rohtang Pass, which would eventually open the road to Ladakh year round. My friend opted to take a horse ride from here to a waterfall and a cave temple besides a stream, while I decided to walk the distance. It was an hour’s walk to the temple, and we climbed higher as we walked.
Solang is a deviation on the road to Rohtang Pass, and is at a level higher than Manali. The higher we climb the better are the views.
Solang Nala flows from the mountains..
Continued at Beyong Manali – II
Travelling in Himachal in June – 2007
Shimla >> Manali >> Rohtang >> Chandratal >> Ki/Kibber/Tabo >> Kalpa >> Shimla
+ Previous: A Day in Shimla
+ Next: Solang Nala
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The first light of the day came at Kullu on my way from Shimla to Manali. My bus made its way along the banks of Beas that flowed in the opposite direction in a great hurry. From my bus, I could here the gurgle of slightly turquoise and transparent water rushing down the valley. The river bed was littered with boulders of all sizes. It is such an inviting flow that you would feel like stopping the bus and getting right down there.
Names like Kullu and Manali sound remote and dreamy when you hear about them from the plains below, but it is hardly so. The road is a highway and is put to good use by hoards of buses, trucks, private cars and yellow-board cabs. Resorts and camps are lined up all along the road, packed so densely that if you were to drive from Kullu to Manali stopping at each one of them for 15 minutes, it would take many weeks to reach the destination. But the journey gives many hints of what is in store further deep in the mountains. River runs cold and its color leaves the evidence of glacial origins. Temperature dips slowly and the road climbs up giving a sneak preview of white washed summits and tall trees. The anticipation of tomorrow rushes into the mind and overwhelms the moment.
Manali is a typical tourist town with hotels and resorts filling up every street, making room for tourists arriving in bus loads from the plains below. Trekking and adventure companies, cab hires, tour agents and restaurants are all that you see on the main roads. Oddly, I wasn’t harassed by touts on my arrival even though a few people gently asked me if I need a room. I offloaded my bag in the cloakroom and went in search of a place to stay.
A short walk put me in love with Manali despite its tourist crowds. Nehru park is quiet and charming with its alpine trees. You look up and you see snowy peaks in every direction with rocky slopes and coniferous forests below it. Picturesque is an overused word, but it perfectly fits what Manali is. I walked away from the bustle of the town and found a quiet hotel in old Manali right next to Manalsu stream coming down from the adjacent mountains.
Later in the day, I met a friend who arrived from Delhi by bus and we charted plans for rest of our journey and made preparations for it.
About Manali
Manali town itself doesn’t offer much in terms of sightseeing. There are a few temples – like the Hadimba temple and Manu Maharshi temple. Vashist, a village just outside Manali has hot springs and many budget guest houses. Solang Nala, which is a 30 minute drive from Manali on the way to Rohtang Pass is a place much visited by tourists. Solang has a ski slope operating in winter and turns into a place for paragliding and a few amusement-sports in summer. In summer, people visit the cave temple which is a short walk from Solang.
Most travellers use Manali as a base for a day-trip to Rohtang Pass. Rohtang Pass is one place which has an easy to access motorable road that can take you above the snow line for most of the year. Besides this, Manali is home to many travel agents and adventure companies that can organize treks, river rafting and jeep safaris in the Himalayas.
Accommodation is in plenty, and nearly every other road is full of hotels and resorts. Considering the number of tourists coming in from the plains in the peaks season, it would still be wise to book ahead if you are looking for mid-range accommodation.
Manali can be reached by buses from Delhi, Chandigarh and Shimla. Many people drive from these cities. Kullu has an airport which is 2 hours away from Manali.
Continued at Solang Nala
Travelling in Himachal in June – 2007
Shimla >> Manali >> Rohtang >> Chandratal >> Ki/Kibber/Tabo >> Kalpa >> Shimla
+ Previous: Driving to Shimla via Chail and Kufri
+ Next: Discovering Manali
+ Go to beginning of the story or index page
Finding a budget hotel in Shimla in the peak of the season is an ordeal you would not want to endure. Not that they don’t exist, but they come with their compromises. A few that I checked reeked of cigarettes, toilets stank and was not fit for normal people. Some more had no windows and no ventilation of any kind and had carpets releasing a dank smell, where the shameless hosts graciously offered to get rid of the odour by spraying antidotes which was nothing more than an equally unbearable perfume. A few clean budget hotels were far from where the action is but I wanted to be in the middle of it since it was my first, but a very short visit. Someone had told me that they do exist close to the mall but I never managed to find any. And our driver would tell me later with a mischievous grin that he knew a few good places but would not bother to tell me where. ‘Forget about finding a budget hotel near the mall,’ my friends who dropped me in Shimla had told me, and I think they said it right.
‘Splurge,’ I finally told myself myself after an unsuccessful search, and splurge I did. The hotel room I took in Shimla cost me exactly 22 times more than the cheapest accommodation I enjoyed in Himachal. But then, the cheapest acco was real cheap, a dhaba in a remote village – Batal – where we were one of the first tourists to arrive this summer. And then if I may add, we probably had 22 times more fun in Batal than in Shimla.
Sit back, relax and watch the world go by. That’s the best thing to do while in Shimla
That doesn’t mean Shimla is a bad place. On the contrary it is a place with a feel-good to it. And if you have come there from super heated Delhi of summers, you will jump with joy and love its pleasant air to no end. A 25 degree weather is not the only attraction of Shimla. It has an easy going and charming atmosphere where no one is in a hurry to go anywhere. Unless of course, you are travel agent or a tout with a target to hassle at least a few dozen tourists in a day. The mall road–the center of all attractions in Shimla–is (fortunately) closed for vehicles, which means people walk there merrily munching ice creams and candy floss, eating in one of its numerous restaurants or occasionally even singing and dancing right on the road. And the ridge, just above the mall often turns festive with tiny groups gathered watching a play, listening to a singer, watching Himachali women dance or indulge in the greatest ‘time pass’ of the entire country: munching something nice and warm sold by a street vendor. And when people have had enough of all that there are always benches laid along the road to sit and watch other people lost in indulgence.
Staying at one end of the mall road, I spent no more than a day in Shimla doing little more than walk to the other end of the mall and back, and then repeating the same walks a few times over. I would squat in a coffee shop or an ice cream parlour when I wanted a break and move on further looking for… well, looking for nothing in particular. The morning breakfast happened at the India Coffee House sitting next to a window overlooking the valleys of Shimla. The Coffee House’s dosas, idlis and coffees tasted precisely as they did in India Coffee House back in Bangalore. I was left wondering if they had it air-delivered from there. Further, I walked around the scandal point and up the ridge and found many more people walking aimlessly just like me. Gaiety Theater on the ridge, which William Dalrymple described as ‘unaltered since the last British sailed home’ is finally under renovation. A few buildings here and there do remain from the colonial era but the evidences of this being the summer capital of the British are not many.
The India Coffee House in Shimla. Yes, I was eating dosa with a fork and knife, because I was writing my journal through the breakfast
Further on the mall road, a few people are selling litchis, peach and a few other English fruits of which I would have probably heard of, but can’t associate the name with shapes. Many of them grow locally and I have a go at a few of them. A tall deodar forest appears bang next to the road beyond the secretariat, where, if you are brought blindfolded, you will definitely presume being in a forest and not a city.
It is evening before I know and it is time for me to move on. As I pack my bags and head out, I go with good feelings of Shimla but nothing to carry with me as memories. It is not one of those places where I feel sad to leave, even when it does have its charm. It is the deodars of Chail and Mashorba that are refusing to go away from memory and remain etched forever.
About Shimla
Shimla’s vicinity to Delhi, Chandigarh and Punjab makes it a popular summer retreat to beat the heat for people from these places. Shimla again sees tourists coming in large numbers in winter whenever it snows. There isn’t much in terms of sightseeing within Shimla, even when travel websites and brochures make a desperate push for a church or a temple here and there, the mall and the scandal point as places of interest. It is a place where the best thing to do is to hang around and kill time.
How-ever, there are many places around Shimla that have excellent vistas of lower Himalayas. Go to Chail, Kufri or Mashobra to enjoy dense deodar forests and some good views. There are more such places, like Naldehra, Narkanda and Kasauli, all within 2 hours drive from Shimla.
There are many hotels and resorts within Shimla and all around it, but finding an accommodation that is value for money at any range is difficult in peak season. So planning ahead is advisable.
Continued at Discovering Manali