MANALI

30th April - 4th May 2015

This has to be the nicest place I have sat and written anything, in fact it is so nice I have taken a stereotypical legs crossed photograph to remember this spot. Helen is off climbing, I was feeling lazy and decided on a day of drinking coffee and wondering round the back streets and mountain paths of a nearby village called Vashisht. (I guess this dynamic may switch when we get to the coast)

Firstly, the bus ride... I thought we had left high speed mountain manoeuvres behind us in Nepal. We were holding on for our lives from half eight at night till four in the morning when we parked up in Manali bus station. We were told the drive should have taken ten hours, but the driver obviously had other ideas and shaved two hours off that estimate. A bloke wondered over saying he had a guest house we could stay in up in old Manali. This suited us as we were planing on staying in either Old Manali or the slightly smaller village of Vashisht on the opposite side of the river. Plus it was not like at that time of morning we had many options. A few of us piled into the back of his jeep and soon we were sound asleep in some random guest house. It was actually pretty nice place in the morning light, tucked away up a rocky flight of stairs just above the old town. The following day we explored a bit and found another really pretty guest house called Laxmi. It had 360 mountain views, plus the room was a lot nicer for fifty pence more, this became our base for the next few days. 

Old Manali is a lively little cluster of old crooked houses, shops, cafes and the odd temple all piled on top of each other. It is where a lot of Indian families and friends come in the summer when the rest of the country gets too hot. Luckily for us the season was only just beginning and the town was still relatively quite and sleepy. If you walk all the way through, the little shops, cafes and guest houses become a little maze of traditional stone and wooden houses, most of which are on the wonk in the most pleasing way. If you walk for about ten minutes in any direction you will find yourself on a rugged mountain path alone on a pine covered hillside. 

The following day we went to climb a crag, situated up in the hillside above Vashisht on the far back of the river. We met Keshu our guide / instructor in a bright orange painted shop called Himalayan Adventures. He spends half the year teaching snowboarding and skiing in the mountains and the summer teaching climbing and bouldering in the foothills. Lucky bastard!  At one point we were considering learning to snowboard in the mountains near by, however when we learnt there was no way to the top other than a three hour walk limiting board time to about twenty mins a day, we decided climbing and bouldering was more our cup of chai.

The routes we tackled were between 15m to 25m high, however the crag was situated high above the village on a steep hillside making the fall look a lot further. We spent the morning successfully climbing a couple of routes. They were quite hard especially the second route where one of the manoeuvres forces you almost horizontal praying your foot doesn't slip. Unlike Helen who is fearless when it comes to heights I shit myself, which is really awkward for the person belaying. Still it was good fun and the beautiful surrounding mountains, valleys and foothills made it hard to keep my eyes on Helen when I was belaying for her. 

In the afternoon Keshu took us into the woodland surrounding Old Manali and showed us some good bouldering spots. It is much harder on rock outdoors than the plastic holds of VauxWall in South London. We spent the afternoon trying various problems and eventually headed back too town, hands shredded but happy. It was nice to do some extreme sports again. It's been a while. 

The following day we thought we would give paragliding a go. Neither of us had done it before and for thirty quid in surroundings like these we thought it had to be worth it. A taxi picked us up at nine and then picked up the two pilots. We were soon snaking up this zigzag path up the side of a mountain. There were thirty three bends in the road before we reached the take off point 3800 meters up. Within moments I was clipped in with Om (my pilot) and running towards the treetops below. There was no time to be nervous or even say bye to Helen who was just clipping in across the hillside. Within seconds I felt the glider pull up and saw my feet soaring over the pine below.

It was an incredible feeling, so smooth, peaceful and weightless. 

Seeing the mountains and valleys gliding through the air is completely breathtaking. Om was whooping and cheering. He said it never gets old and every flight is as good as the first. I can believe that. About ten minutes in he said do you want to do some acrobatics. I said no, but he did some anyway and within moments we were horizontally spinning towards the ground. My heart missed a few beats but it was an incredible feeling after the initial 'you bastard'. 

We gracefully glided down over some rooftops and waving kids to a small clearing where we  ungracefully crash landed into a pile of twigs. I was still holding Om's GoPro camera which had recorded the flight so I was able to video Helen coming in to land. It was equally as abrupt, they said normally its a lot smoother but the wind had swung. Helen seemed to have had an equally amazing experience but had been firmer on the topic of acrobatics. Either way I think the official extreme sports terminology for how we felt was 'stoked'. The afternoon was spent being lazy, drinking coffee and trying to do a bit of life admin using the wifi on the roof of the guest house, we felt like we had earned a break.

The following day we explored the little village of Vashisht. It is smaller than Old Manali but just as beautiful. We wondered round the local temples, one of which housed two hot springs one for men and one for women. After some lunch in the centre we walked through the traditional back roads until we reached the hillside. After walking about twenty minutes up we reached a massive waterfall. We decided to hike up the side for a while to a cafe which we found was closed. We sat there dozing on the stone terrace for an hour or so, it was such a lovely place and there wasn't a person in sight.

We met up with some of the guys from Dharamkot / Amritsa in the afternoon. They had arrived a few days after us. We relaxed on the terrace of their guest house for a bit before wandering back down into the village for some food. We whiled away the evening watching the sun sink behind the mountains casting the peaks in orange light, before the full moon painted them silver. It was very nice.

This brings me to today. We checked out of our room round nine ish, and after a coffee and a croissant  we took a picturesque tuk tuk ride to Vashisht. Helen disappeared off into the hills again to climb the crag whilst I went off exploring in the other direction. After twenty minutes or so of walking I found this place. I climbed up the side of the waterfall off the footpath and now i'm laid back on a rock that's more comfortable than most of the busses we have ridden. 

Hopefully Helen will come down from the mountain in one piece later and we can catch our night bus to Shimla.