8:13 PM 9/23/01
Greetings from Manali!
Manali is in the foothills of the Himalayas and a popular resort for foreigners and Indians. We are surrounded by high mountains. There are many Tibetan refugees here. We are staying in the "Green Forest" guest house. Standards of lodging are not the same here as in the U.S.
But we are paying about $2.00 / night.
To get here from Leh, we had a 28 hour bus trip to go only 300 miles. It must be one of the remotest parts of the world - it is the 2nd highest road in the world ( the highest being out of Leh too - beating this one by 1000 ft). The road is barely passable and it seemed the average speed of the bus was about
5 mph. However, we were able to experience amazing formations and canyons, gorges carved out of plateaus, dry plains. It could have been a scene out of National Geographic when the bus stopped in the middle of a dry 30 mile plain so we seemed the only living things and the
largest rocks were about the size of buckets. It would have been picturesque except all passengers were spread out peeing. Basic needs - eat, sleep, pee on long bus rides.Interestingly - at the summits after laboring for hours, what was there looked like a scene from
depictions of purgatory or hell itself. Skinny laborers covered in black soot were burning fires under barrels of tar to melt it. Then they scooped out the tar, and mixed it with gravel and spread it on the road - using the most primitive methods. The result was a 1 lane road over which passed heavy trucks, large military vehicles, daring and speedy jeeps - passing us both ways.
To climb one mountain there were 21 "loops" - switchbacks which were too tight to be rounded by the bus so we would move into them - then the front wheels came up to the brink (often 5000 ft drop) - the driver would try to find reverse - back up and finally, miraculously swing
around the loop.
The trip was supposed to take 2 days with an overnight midway in some tents, but we
found when we got to the tent site that the tents had been taken away for the season. So the
driver stated his intention to continue to drive throughout the night - driving for 24 hours himself.
At the next stop, I used all my best project management skills to approach the driver and
persuade him to stop for the night. It worked well - so we stayed as a bus group in a
tent restaurant in the middle of the mountains. The stars from there were amazing. I was glad
because the road continued as crazy and the scenery was spectacular in the morning (we left
at 4:00 am!).
Well - tomorrow John and I leave for Delhi to stop over before Nepal and leave most of our
stuff there. We have purchased many interesting things. Tonigh I bought a beautiful hand
woven shawl with intricate patterns for $20!