Manali
My usual travel plan to decide on Friday where to go on the same day, basically just toss a second t-shirt1 in my backpack and go to the bus stand totally backfired when I went to Manali.
We were four, Flavio from Brazil, Jakub from Poland, Costas from Greek and me. And well, apart from freezing my ass of, it was otherwise a very nice and funny weekend trip.
For example there were those saffron-street-sellers. I know, it’s easy to get hashish in Manali… but saffron?! One approached me exactly in the same way I expect hashish sellers to approach me. But he did not pull out a bag with small packets of brownish powder. Instead, he pulled out a bag with small packets of red powder, urging me to buy his “good quality” saffron. I met several of those people during my stay – no people trying to sell other stuff on the street… So, of all things you can possibly huckster on the street, WHY SAFFRON?? I asked the saffron-seller if he perhaps sells salt, curry, pepper, too. But he didn’t. Too bad. Hashish neither. I’m still not sure if this saffron-selling is just a cover to sell drugs?
Whatever. I bought a lot of CDs on my last trips and these are really not very cheap. But I found a cheap way to acquire Indian music: Search for music on the PC(s) in a cyber cafe (Internet cafe) and copy it to your USB-Stick. Or: Ask the owner of Chopsticks if one can borrow a CD for 10 minutes. :>
We went to visit some nice temples, Solang Valley to do paragliding, Old Manali & Vashisht and a small fair which turned out to be a fair graveyard, a toilet for dogs and garbage pile. :)
1 plus camera, travel guide and my notebook and NO TOWEL
Solang Valley
WTF… It WORKS!!!
So, err…. when does it start?
Very tasty
Flavio and me