Manali

Considering the sweltering heat and 'power-cut' in the Capital (New Delhi), it was literally an escapade to the cooler heights of Manali even if the over night journey took around 15 hours by bus. It's been almost 8 years since the last visit and I wasn't sure what to expect from Manali. Was worried if it has also become another Shimla or Ooty two of the most famous hill stations in the country. Unplanned 'growth' and 'politician-land mafia' nexus has destroyed these once beautiful hill stations. (Imagine drought and traffic pollution up in the mountains!).

Contrary, Manali for some reasons remain clean and I did'nt see that much of infrastructure development to the scale of what has happened in Shimla and Ooty. Even when Delhi and surrounding regions are braving heat, there were not many domestic tourists. There were quite a lot of foreigners though.

In a nut shell, Manali still looks beautiful, it's clean and the market still has its uniqueness. It's still a pleasure to walk around even within the town, and not to talk about the immediate vicinity with it's breath-taking mountain and river views! With a wonderful company in Gulshan, we went around tasting some mouth watering local food! (BTW, after not being in touch for almost 5 years, we met each other through facebook and decided to travel together in an impulse!)

One of the difference from last visit to Manali was the absence of polythene bags in shops. All the shops we went were giving bags made out of old newspapers. That's quite an achievement considering the fact that the initiative has failed in many places including Kerala and Tamilnadu. Though the city looks cleaner, many picnic spots out in the woods were littered as you can see from the photographs. Frankly to my surprise, I was impressed to see some boys taking back their garbage after their picnic. After all, albeit slowly, we are becoming sensitive to the environment.

So far the trip has been fabulous and I hope I will be able to keep everyone posted once in a while. Like in many other trips, we ended up meeting couple of people and made instant connections. I can see that we will be working together with some of them in the immediate future.

All excited about the 12 hour driver by jeep to the mountains tommorow.

Manali © GP 2007