45: In the foothills of Himalayas - Manali in March - Part 2 of 3

Day 2: Bilaspur - Aut - Mandi - Kullu - Manali (170km, 4 hours)
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The morning came swiftly on the second day, but before we started off, it was already about 10am - perils of a family traveling together that one has to learn to endure over time. The road further ahead is now narrower and winding, and the going starts getting slower. The surface gets a little rough once again near Barmana - where ACC has a cement factory, but it is better than the last night.

There is a large lake near Bilaspur - I believe it is called Gobind Sagar. We could see the glimpse of the water body from far, and the setting looked nice. The road climbed further to Sundernagar - which is actually quite pretty (Sunder - literally 'beautiful') - with a canal flowing along the edge of the road, and has a small-town feel. It is pity they have not developed this one into a nice a tourist place. There are no restaurants, very limited dhabas for families and practically no hotels (except a 'Shangri-La' namesake ripoff).

Bilasput to Mandi is about 70km - which takes about an hour and a half, and Mandi to Manali is around 100km. At Mandi, one has to take the right to go towards Kullu. It is a busy town, with the typical hustle and bustle of wholesale markets - hence the name 'Mandi'.

As you go further from Mandi, the road starts getting more scenic, but also winding. The river Beas flows downwards on one side, usually to the left side. At Pandoh (about 40km from Mandi), there is a large lake formed as the backwaters of the dam, and from here, you get to cross the river on a bridge maintained by the army, and then start climbing further towards Aut.

Aut is famous for its 2km-long tunnel - a deep and winding wormhole that almost blinds you in spite of the lighting done inside - that takes you to the left towards Bhuntar (20km), where there is the now-defunct airport of Kullu. The road is small and narrow all along, and is sometimes marred with the aftermaths of some recent landslides.

From Bhuntar, the actual town of Kullu is another 10km, but you don't go there. One needs to take a bridge to the right side of the river, and then carry along the river upwards. You do get to see the ancient capital of the valley on the other side of the river to your left.

Beas River at Bhutar - Kullu

Another 20km of winding road brings you to Patli kuhl, where one can take a right and go to Naggar - which has the wooden palace of the ancient kings of the valley - or you could take the left, cross the bridge again and head towards Manali.

On this last 20km of climb, you keep seeing the signboards for river rafting all along the road. They have their badge numbers for recognition. In fact, there are only two types of signboards that you see - rafting and Kullu shawls. The road is a bit dusty, and broken in parts - especially the patches close to the river - but the going is steady. Thus we reached the town of Manali by 2pm.

At Manali, one first encounters the new town, with shops, schools, hotels - pretty mundane and ordinary stuff. For the real Manali, you have to cross all that, cross the mall and then head towards Hidimba temple. This area is the Old Manali, and here is where you will find the real charm of Manali.

We have always stayed at Johnson's whenever we have gone to Manali, and this time we were pained to see that the wonderful property is now split between two siblings. We tried our luck at the first one out of the two adjacent properties - Johnson Lodge. Much better service and great rooms. We got their best - a large attic-room on the third floor, with wooden flooring and a huge bath, and a nice skylight. The room was spacious, clean and charming.

View from Johnson Lodge

The restaurant is good too, and serves very nice trout fish - Johnson's specialty. We tried all sorts of trout in the three days - grilled, baked, tandoori - the works. And the lounge is very lively too. Good music. Heating places. Pool. Overall, very nice to hang out.

However, the restaurant menu at Johnson Lodge is rather limited - not as much variety as the other one (Johnson Cafe) - who also have trout curry etc. But, one has to suffer very poor and rude service in the second one. It is also more crowded than this one. So you have a choice - do you want good food and good service or slightly better food and really bad service? We preferred the first one.

A lazy evening that followed the wonderful lunch of baked trout saw us wandering listlessly on the mall road of Manali. This is still not the peak season time in Manali, and yet the mall was crowded with tourists trying to imitate their urban lifestyle even in the mountains. We did find some excellent roadside gulab jamuns though - very small round ones that you get in a small bowl made of dried leaves. I think we must have had at least half a dozen bowls.

Santoshi Mata Temple on Mall Road, Manali Town

Before the nightfall, we visited the Hidimba temple with its wooden carvings - made famous by the abduction scene in Bollywood movie 'Roja' of Maniratnam - and the adjoining tree temple of her son Ghatotkatch. The magic of the legendary Rakshasa warrior-god probably started to take effect soon and we retired to our room up the attic, while it started to drizzle over the mountain tops that could be seen almost rubbing shoulders with the windows.

Himalayan Mountain Range as seen from Manali 

The Tree Temple of Ghatotkatch

Day 3 and 4 follow ...

Regards,

Shreekant