Thursday, January 19, 2006
Manali: Snowed In
Good news snow fans - we're looking at piles of white stuff here in Manali, even if it is pretty wet here in town. We arrived here Monday in the midst of a big storm, which made travel pretty interesting.
Backing up... we finally managed to see some of the sights of Delhi on Saturday (pictures: http://photobucket.com/albums/v206/larsonek/Delhi%20January%202006/). We walked around town a bit more, then made our way to Humayun's tomb. The surrounding gardens, fountains, etc. have had significant restoration work done since I saw them in 1998, and the building itself is pretty amazing. Even the surrounding "minor" monuments were impressive. I hope we can post more pictures later, but we need to find a better internet place. This one is slow, and it won't let me add pictures or links for some reason. .
We met up with Beau at his cushy digs (his neighborhood had considerably less "local color" than ours - read: fewer cows and less garbage) and went out to dinner with he and his colleagues who are in town putting on a workshop brining Indian and Pakistani teachers together. Pretty nifty program. He's off to Pakistan this week for the second half, and eventually plans to make his way up here to meet us.
Sunday saw us making our way out of the market to the "Deluxe Tourist Bus" - quite the spectacle with us trailing after the bicycle rickshaw, who was walking his rig with all of our gear piled in the passenger seat. Most of the bus passengers were young Indian men - probably students, and probably on their way to Manali to see snow for the first time. We got on at 4pm, and the bus was scheduled to arrive at 7am in Manali. As we were settling in to sleep, we thought it was funny that all the Indian guys were bundling up in ski masks, gloves, warm coats... until we realized the bus had no heat and no insulation. Luckily we had enough stuff stashed in our carry-ons to be relatively comfy, but the down coats would have been nice. Morning dawned with snow at fairly low elevation, and with no chains and bald tires, we weren't too surprised when the bus stopped 20k short of Manali. The Indian snow fans were ecstatic to get outside; Trevor and I were less enthusiastic. The slush-fall looked like classic 34-degree Snoqualmie Pass. By the time we'd negotiated a jeep ride from one of the 4x4 taxis that descended on the herd of stopped buses like vultures, you could see the enthusiasm waning in the newbies - pretty cold and wet.
Arriving (finally!) in Manali, we made our way through 2 feet of heavy new snow (we've heard at least 5 feet of new at Solang, a bit higher up) to our arranged contact with John's friends at Himalayan Journeys (and the next-door German Bakery, which is owned by the same family), and they've been incredibly kind to us. After fortifying us with hot chai, we set off in their jeep to the very nice house up on the hill where they're letting us stay. The jeep didn't make it very far, but the driver and Annand (HJ guide and all-round go-to guy) helped us carry our things up the hill. The place is chilly but beautiful, and hot water in the bathroom! It also comes with a caretaker/cook... not exactly something we're used to, or something we've had any luck taking advantage of. Ajay doesn't speak any English, and according to Annand, not much Hindi either. I guess he's from somewhere in West Bengal. Anyway, he mostly hides from us, and other than keeping a fire going downstairs (which doesn't help much in our room) the most we've gotten out of him is toast. After a nap, we went back into town, and Annand took us around to the grocers and introduced us so we'd get "Indian prices".
By the time we got back up the hill, I wasn't feeling so hot, and ended up spending most of a very cold night in the bathroom sick. Tuesday I mostly slept and let Trevor nurse me, and he went into town for groceries and checked out the temple that's 5 minutes' walk further up the hill from our house. He wore his ski touring boots (huge piles of snow and slush all over) and didn't want to take them off to go in, but said what he could see of the inside looked very interesting. In town he manged to round up the necessary supplies, and after stopping by Himalayan Journeys, managed to come home with a space heater! Iqbal (HJ owner) said they needed them for that house anyway, and wouldn't let Trev pay him for it. We think the house is a long-term rental that HJ keeps for their guests... but we're not really sure. Trevor assured me I wasn't missing much outside - it pretty much poured all day, on top of another good snow dump from the night before. Very messy.
Yesterday I was feeling much better, and the weather cleared as well. Suddenly the orchard below our window had all kinds of birds coming and going, so I spent a lot of the day with the birdbook (thanks, Jenny!) and binocs trying to figure out what I was seeing and hearing. I managed to identify several positively - from the less-than-thrilling house sparrow to the jaunty Himalayan Bulbul (http://www.kashmirnetwork.com/birds/bulbul.html) - and saw a good number more that I can only guess at so far. The variety of song-birds is amazing. Unfortunately, as I was recovering, Trevor started feeling worse, and slept the day away. Not bad timing, though - I recovered in time to take over water-boiling and supply-fetching duties.
Today I'm in town picking up a few things, and Trev is home resting. Hopefully he'll be doing better by tomorrow, and we can go out walking a bit. Annand was talking about going out on a little ski tour with us - just from our house up through the woods and maybe to Solang, which would be nice.
Backing up... we finally managed to see some of the sights of Delhi on Saturday (pictures: http://photobucket.com/albums/v206/larsonek/Delhi%20January%202006/). We walked around town a bit more, then made our way to Humayun's tomb. The surrounding gardens, fountains, etc. have had significant restoration work done since I saw them in 1998, and the building itself is pretty amazing. Even the surrounding "minor" monuments were impressive. I hope we can post more pictures later, but we need to find a better internet place. This one is slow, and it won't let me add pictures or links for some reason. .
We met up with Beau at his cushy digs (his neighborhood had considerably less "local color" than ours - read: fewer cows and less garbage) and went out to dinner with he and his colleagues who are in town putting on a workshop brining Indian and Pakistani teachers together. Pretty nifty program. He's off to Pakistan this week for the second half, and eventually plans to make his way up here to meet us.
Sunday saw us making our way out of the market to the "Deluxe Tourist Bus" - quite the spectacle with us trailing after the bicycle rickshaw, who was walking his rig with all of our gear piled in the passenger seat. Most of the bus passengers were young Indian men - probably students, and probably on their way to Manali to see snow for the first time. We got on at 4pm, and the bus was scheduled to arrive at 7am in Manali. As we were settling in to sleep, we thought it was funny that all the Indian guys were bundling up in ski masks, gloves, warm coats... until we realized the bus had no heat and no insulation. Luckily we had enough stuff stashed in our carry-ons to be relatively comfy, but the down coats would have been nice. Morning dawned with snow at fairly low elevation, and with no chains and bald tires, we weren't too surprised when the bus stopped 20k short of Manali. The Indian snow fans were ecstatic to get outside; Trevor and I were less enthusiastic. The slush-fall looked like classic 34-degree Snoqualmie Pass. By the time we'd negotiated a jeep ride from one of the 4x4 taxis that descended on the herd of stopped buses like vultures, you could see the enthusiasm waning in the newbies - pretty cold and wet.
Arriving (finally!) in Manali, we made our way through 2 feet of heavy new snow (we've heard at least 5 feet of new at Solang, a bit higher up) to our arranged contact with John's friends at Himalayan Journeys (and the next-door German Bakery, which is owned by the same family), and they've been incredibly kind to us. After fortifying us with hot chai, we set off in their jeep to the very nice house up on the hill where they're letting us stay. The jeep didn't make it very far, but the driver and Annand (HJ guide and all-round go-to guy) helped us carry our things up the hill. The place is chilly but beautiful, and hot water in the bathroom! It also comes with a caretaker/cook... not exactly something we're used to, or something we've had any luck taking advantage of. Ajay doesn't speak any English, and according to Annand, not much Hindi either. I guess he's from somewhere in West Bengal. Anyway, he mostly hides from us, and other than keeping a fire going downstairs (which doesn't help much in our room) the most we've gotten out of him is toast. After a nap, we went back into town, and Annand took us around to the grocers and introduced us so we'd get "Indian prices".
By the time we got back up the hill, I wasn't feeling so hot, and ended up spending most of a very cold night in the bathroom sick. Tuesday I mostly slept and let Trevor nurse me, and he went into town for groceries and checked out the temple that's 5 minutes' walk further up the hill from our house. He wore his ski touring boots (huge piles of snow and slush all over) and didn't want to take them off to go in, but said what he could see of the inside looked very interesting. In town he manged to round up the necessary supplies, and after stopping by Himalayan Journeys, managed to come home with a space heater! Iqbal (HJ owner) said they needed them for that house anyway, and wouldn't let Trev pay him for it. We think the house is a long-term rental that HJ keeps for their guests... but we're not really sure. Trevor assured me I wasn't missing much outside - it pretty much poured all day, on top of another good snow dump from the night before. Very messy.
Yesterday I was feeling much better, and the weather cleared as well. Suddenly the orchard below our window had all kinds of birds coming and going, so I spent a lot of the day with the birdbook (thanks, Jenny!) and binocs trying to figure out what I was seeing and hearing. I managed to identify several positively - from the less-than-thrilling house sparrow to the jaunty Himalayan Bulbul (http://www.kashmirnetwork.com/birds/bulbul.html) - and saw a good number more that I can only guess at so far. The variety of song-birds is amazing. Unfortunately, as I was recovering, Trevor started feeling worse, and slept the day away. Not bad timing, though - I recovered in time to take over water-boiling and supply-fetching duties.
Today I'm in town picking up a few things, and Trev is home resting. Hopefully he'll be doing better by tomorrow, and we can go out walking a bit. Annand was talking about going out on a little ski tour with us - just from our house up through the woods and maybe to Solang, which would be nice.
Labels: India, Kullu Valley
