Kullu Manali

There have been some arguments today about issues I hinted at in earlier posts, but I shall not go into those. Besides those, it's been a great day honestly. I got my first look at himalayan snow, had my first (and hopefully only) experience of nearly falling into a (shallow) river while peeing, and many more.

We started the day at the break of dawn when all you could see outside was white. Fog. Nothing else. I would post a photo of what the view from my room looked like last night and this morning, but frankly, the photo of the fog is on another SD card and I'm too cold to go and get it. Picture this... White. Then hold your arm out - that's about the visibility range we had this morning. But that was only until while we were in the valley at Bilaspur. From there, we drove up and down and all around until we reached the top of one of many mountains and then headed down into another valley that had fog roll around in it like a bowl of dry ice. It was really a beautiful sight and such a cool experience going from 100% visibility to 1% half way down the mountain. From there it was a long but beautiful drive along the rising river bed. We went through a couple towns (Sundarnagar, Mandi, Pindoh, and Bhuntar) until we reached the over populated busy city of Kullu. This city is famous for it's festival celebrations, but since there are no festivals and events happening, it's pretty much dead. There was not much to do here except for driving up to the top of the mountain and looking at the city below (pretty), looking at the grounds where the festivals are held (dull), and going to see the primary school that my grandfather used to go to (amazing). The school apparently has not changed one single bit since his time there when Kullu used to be a small village settlement. Even the furniture in the principal's office is the same as it used to be! I got a little emotional there..it was such an adorable structure too.

From Kullu, we then started a 40km ride against the flow of the river (uphill) to Manali - a tourist hot spot, but where I was hoping to see snow. Along the way, I must have taken about 18,00000 photos because again, the scenery was nothing short of gorgeous! Snow capped mountains against autumn trees, a slightly dried out river bed with giant boulders...oh it was amazing in my opinion. Oh and of course there were clear blue skies and air so fresh that southern Ireland seems polluted in comparison!

It had apparently snowed a couple days ago in Manali, but we didn't see it. Instead we saw the most polluted city in Himachal so far (imo). I did however, get to go to the hot springs there (dull) and a temple that's been around from the time of the Mahabharata (one of India's greatest legends)! The story goes that a daughter of a monster (rakhshasa), who was really quite kind, was married to one of the 5 sons of this brilliant king. They both had a son who was the only person who could destroy the monster because of his strength and so everyone lived happily ever after, etc. Oh and apparently the place where the daughter used to sleep is where the temple was built... and people still go there to see the platform. I unfortunately did not get to go inside because it was so crowded, but the architecture was really interesting, with a little influence from both India and China since it's close to the border.

After taking two really unstable bridges from Manali, we headed to Rotangarh, which is a snow laden area closed by the military in the winter. I don't know why they do this and I don't know how we got in, but we did and it was...well let's just say that a jaw dropping WOW would not be enough. By this time, the sun had started to set and everything was orange, pink, blue, white, pretty! 10 minutes later it was dark.

And we made our way back to Kullu, where we're staying tonight. Here are some photos from today.

The hotel we're staying at in Kullu.

My first peak at the snow-capped mountains in northern Himalayas!

I want to eat these mountains!

Sunset on our way back from Manali.