Manali

Arriving in Manali in the early evening, after two consecutive days of long and arduous bus journeys, I'm eager to find a peaceful place to stay for a few days. Avoiding the touts at the bus station and the city centre, I instead take a rickshaw to Vashisht, a nearby village on the hillside across the river. The guest house I'd chosed in my guidebook turns out to be closed, so I investigate other options. After seeing 3 more, I come to the conclusion that Vashisht is TOO isolated and sleepy, so start walking back to Manali.

A rickshaw passes by 20 minutes later, which I share with a couple of locals. The city centre is too noisy, grey and unattractive, many hotels in sight, but the ones I see are grotty and/or expensive. Fed up, I walk up the street fully laden, at a loss. A friendly looking chap appears by my side and offers me a guesthouse in Old Manali, which sounds reasonable, so I accept the offer. After a chai, we trudge 30 minutes up hill, across a bridge and into the peace and quiet of Old Manali. "Shanti Shanti" indeed; except for my host, Sanju, I have the guesthouse to myself.

Looking forward to a hot shower, I'm dismayed to discover there's no water (the water tank is empty!). Instead, Sanju provides me with a bucket of freezing water and assures me that hot water "morningtime coming". Morningtime arrives and still no running water, let alone hot water. It appears one of the main water pipes in Old Manali has frozen and cracked. It's winter here, off season, and freezing cold at night. Sanju offers me another bucket of cold water and a heating element, which dangles out of an electric socket and into the bucket of water for about an hour, the water remaining cold. Eventually I settle for a cold wash, and head into town for breakfast.

Wandering around town, confirming my suspicions that new Manali is quite ugly, I discover I'm the only non-Indian tourist in town. I'm not tempted by any of the Kullu shawls, caps or other wares on offer in the bazaars, so I question a few tour agencies about possibilities of trekking in Lahul, to the north and over the Rohtang Pass. I'm informed that the pass is closed, despite there having been little precipitation this winter. I finally walk back up the hill to Splendour guesthouse, and spend the afternoon trying to decipher Hindi script from a children's book Sanju kindly lends me. Written Hindi appears quite complex. He prepares Alu Gobi and chappatis for dinner, which I gobble up whilst watching the full moon rise over the mountains.

Next morningtime, still no hot water, I decide to check for myself the status of Rohtang Pass. In the early hours after a chai, I hire a Yamaha 125 and take Sanju with me as company and guide. The bike deals well with the uneven, winding mountain roads. My extremities cope less well with the freezing air in the early morning mountain-shade. We stop at a breakfast hut in the middle of nowhere (Khoti, 2500m above sea level). I enjoy an omelette and butter toast. Our hosts seem Nepalese or Tibetan, but are in fact from Lahur.

Out, on and up, Sanju takes the drivers seat for a while, but we soon change back as he can't figure out how to change down the gears! Soon there are icy patches on the road, which become increasingly frequent until there becomes more ice than road. It no longer seems prudent to continue on the Yamaha, so I park it next to a row of jeeps parked neatly along the roadside, continuing by foot. Opportunistic salespeople with makeshift stalls next to the road offer wellington boots for hire to the Indian tourists (occupants of the jeeps). A few of them are trying to ski, although there's no piste in sight, just an icy stretch along the road. We climb above the road to escape the crowd, an when we can ascend no further, we stop to take in the views of the snow-capped mountains adorning the opposite side of the valley.

Having confirmed Rohtang Pass is, effectively, unpassable right now, we head back to explore Vashisht. Leaving the Yamaha at the end of the road, we continue on foot along the path, through the rustic part of the village, where women were washing clothes in communal washing place. Beyond the village, we continue beneath the pine forest on the slopes towards the waterfall, stopping on the way back at a beautiful old stone temple on the hillside, full of energy. I take some time to meditate. Back in the village, we have chai with a friend of Sanju's, in a small wooden building, the single room incorporating a stove, a small kitchen, a bed and room to sit around the stove. One final surprise awaits me in Vashisht... the local stone temple houses some communal bath tanks of hot sulphuric spring water. I begin to remember the joys of hot water, and enjoy it profoundly, despite being the object of attention to the local bathers.