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After Dharamsala we took one of those wonderful Indian night buses to Manali. Along the way, the driver stopped for food (he was the only one eating, as everyone else had logically eaten before the 20:30 bus) at a roadside restaurant where there were so many flying insects that all of the pot covers were drowning in dead bugs.

We arrived very tired to Manali, which is a place that we weren’t that much looking forward to visiting as we had heard that it would be swarming with tourists, many of which were here to sample the famous Manali charas which is harvested from fields of naturally growing marijuana plants. As happens quite often, what we expected and what was actually the case were two different things. Manali is a typical hill station made awful by overcrowding, noise, cars, over-development and obnoxious tourists. However, Old Manali, where most of the backpackers head is beautiful. There are pockets of guest houses and cafes scattered along a mountainside, overlooking a valley of orchards. There are wild looking pine forests and the old town still has more farm houses than guest houses. The people are very different from normal Indians. They have quite pale skin, dress completely different, and are very amiable. Most of them seemed to be farmers. We saw quite a few women carrying in bundles of grain that they would beat by hand in the front yards of their fantastic stone and timber houses. The architecture in Manali was also very traditional, unlike the ugly concrete block buildings in most other towns. Even the town’s temple was wooden and had the feel of an Alpine log cabin.

We spent a couple of days walking in the hills, enjoying the silence and fresh air, and I caught my one and only Euro 2008 match. Croatia 2 – Germany 1.

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