There's me after roughly six hours of hiking up the slopes of a mountain whose name I'm sure I remembered at less altitude. Raju, my spry little guide told me that he was "most-certainly-sure" that this was above 4000 meters. Turns out he was right. It's re
ally too bad that Manali doesn't sell the "I skied the roof of the world" t-shirts. Though all in all it amounted to little more than 30 minutes of skiing. The view made up for the crackly ice sheet that had me going from carving to plunging into waist deep powder. Watching the town's one helicopter buzzing overhead dropping a swedish group wherever their heart desired didn't even manage to disheartened me somehow. There really is something in skiing a hill beside your ski tracks going the other way.
Manali really made me stop and fall properly in love with this overpopulated, overfriendly country. I through my bag into the tiny auto-rickshaw after my nine hour trip from Palampur and arrived, exhausted, at my suddenly boarded up hotel (which I had called earlier that day) to laugh hysterically. What else could I do? The town had been abandoned by tourists for Goa's heat and the guest house-ridden Old Manali resembled the image of Eastern Europe portrayed in Eurotrip with the garbage blowing in the wind...and I had planned to stay for 10 days.
But, as always, India grabs you by the wrist and this time it was in the form of a shopkeeper who must have spotted me in hysterics and thought he'd give me a room to shut me up. Ended up spending seven nights sleeping in his empty guesthouse, eating with his entire extend family in one of the converted rooms downstairs and paying little more than $3/night.
Anand, my host, and I became fast friends after he showed me with glowing pride his pair of Rossignol Bandits that he had double padlocked in the windowseat. Said that it would take time as proper ski touring season isnt for a couple of months (oops) but he'd find me a guide.
In the meantime, my pet stray dog Rocky and I hiked up to the local "ski lift" to see what was what. Took three hours, several surprise attacks from other mangier looking strays and gaping at kids flying down snow-spotted hills/cliffs in makeshift wooden sleds but we made it up to Solang Nullah.
There, among the throng of hundreds of ski-tarded Indian tourists I spotted a western lady decked out in a fancy parka, gold earings and looking very out of place at the bottom of the paraglyding hill. Rocky and I lounged on the sun soaked lodge balcony and got talking with Paula, a Zambian daughter of ex-pats now living in Pune with her husband who should be flailing through the sky at any moment. He soon landed along with their daughter's best friend from Sydney who was not surprisingly surrounded by young eager Indians looking for a picture or two to show their mates. I let Paula know their intentions and what they were going to most likely tell their mates, from experience, and she quickly rushed off to warn Basia.
Was great to meet some other english speaking travelers and though Paula, Scoobie (Peter) and Basia were hardly backpackers we had loads to talk about over tea and a zorb with Basia. What's a zorb? Voila!
The kind folks even agreed to let Rocky jump in the back of their car, despite their driver's repulsive throat clearings from the front. We did a little tour of the town. Hot Springs, spiritual museum.
"Imagine your body is a car and your soul is the driver" -curator
"He must be driving a rustbucket then" - Basia
Oh! and witnessed an overturned tractor and helped push the thing back over to clear the mile long traffic line. On top of all that they offered to have me for dinner at the local five star hotel. Wow! Anand would have never beleived this!! Taught Basia how to properly eat Indian food with her hands, took a bit of persuading but the waiters loved it. Played pool, us against the parents which ended in a lot of laughs as Scoobie and I watched Basia and Paula try and hit the right balls. The parents packed it in early and left us for a last game. That last game took a couple more hours and a walk through the starlit park. You know when something really clicks with someone...anyway, they left the next day for Delhi. Paula and Scoobie back home to Pune and Basia to travel with a wealthy Indian man who took her to the palaces of her dreams without any intentions, we're still trying to figure him out.
I was left to rockclimb, hike and dunk myself in the scorching hot springs.
"It burns like fire for the first few minutes but you get used to it after...no, you never get used to it" - Man from Oxford who claimed he'd ridden himself of sexual desire.
As promised, Anand got me up the hill, for a very large price but hey, its the Himalayas, doesn't cost anything in my books. Basically, found ways to distract myself from looking over pictures from day one with her. My flight to Bangkok approached all too fast and I took the night bus to Delhi and said my goodbyes to Anand and his family which had sortof become mine.
The night before my flight I skyped Basia, now in Pune, and she asked if I would delay my flight to come down and see her. Hmm, probably gonna cost too much I thought. Might as well give it a go though, you can only be more dissapointed I figured.
"Hi there Jet Airways, could I possibly delay my flight thats leaving tomorrow evening for 10 days time?"
"Do you mean your flight that leaves in an hour?"
"Uh what? Oh no, ohhh oops. Well, yes then that would be splendid! How much do I owe?"
"Nada sir, now you go down to Goa with a uni graduate for a romantic gettaway that unfortunately can't go any further than bliss for a week, okay?"
"Okay!!"
Three days on a train. Does the landscape change? Not really. Do people get on and off? Nope. What do they do to keep busy? Stare out the window.
- "...We've done the cultural bit now so please give us some sand, trance and beer."
The too few days that we had before Basia had to be back to Mumbai for her flight to London washed by in that annoying way time works when you're happy. High Speed.
There's me after roughly six hours of hiking up the slopes of a mountain whose name I'm sure I remembered at less altitude. Raju, my spry little guide told me that he was "most-certainly-sure" that this was above 4000 meters. Turns out he was right. It's really too bad that Manali doesn't sell the "I skied the roof of the world" t-shirts. Though all in all it amounted to little more than 30 minutes of skiing. The view made up for the crackly ice sheet that had me going from carving to plunging into waist deep powder. Watching the town's one helicopter buzzing overhead dropping a swedish group wherever their heart desired didn't even manage to disheartened me somehow. There really is something in skiing a hill beside your ski tracks going the other way.
In the meantime, my pet stray dog Rocky and I hiked up to the local "ski lift" to see what was what. Took three hours, several surprise attacks from other mangier looking strays and gaping at kids flying down snow-spotted hills/cliffs in makeshift wooden sleds but we made it up to Solang Nullah.
