The Mountains can be mean but are worth it!!. Review on Manali

Before leaving for Manali, we were told it has something for everyone. It is big enough to keep you entertained for weeks & small enough to make you feel relaxed.

Even though it is about 570 km from Delhi, it attracts a lot of the city crowd. It is better to visit on the start of the off - season, say by 15th July, otherwise you are going to end up running into your neighbours!!

We went for a week long trip covering many other places in Himachal, namely Kasauli, Kullu, Manali & Chandigarh. This is where we spend the nights atleast. Otherwise, on the long drive to Manali you can visit lots and lots of other individualistic & beautiful towns.

Getting to Manali - This was the best experience of the whole trip. We drove via Kalka, Bilaspur, Mandi & Naggar. Naggar was once the capital of the Kullu District & boasts of the famous Naggar Castle. You will get better information on the attractions on the himachal tourism site so let me spare you the details.

What is worth mentioning is the scenic beauty on the drive to Kullu. The roads/ state highway has been carved out in between these huge mountain & most of the time it feels you are driving in a 3 - sided tunnel. On one side is the mountain & the other side is the River Beas which believe me, looks like a mighty river!!

In Manali - Try and stay away from the Mall. Mist hotels there have small, congested rooms where it is difficult to get any sleep due to the traffic. There is lots to do, if you really want to do something...but we opted to relax instead. Not that we totally lazed out (!) Long walks to the mall & beyond every evening; Long walks to Old Manali every afternoon; Long morning sitting in front of the huge bedroom windows on comfy sofas...that is quite a bit.

But we couldnt come back without a trip to Rohtang (51 km from Manali & frequented by most to see snow!!). My husband had never seen snow & this was the highlight of the trip for him. But unfortunately, we never really made it there. Our poor little Maruti 800 could not take the bad roads & broke down 16 km before Rohtang. This is another story altogether of how we were robbed to get our car repaired. It cost us a bomb, really!!

Tip - try and hire a Sumo/ Qualis for your dive upto Rohtang. The roads are in pathetic condition. It is better to have a vehicle which is elevated/ has big tyres (am sorry, bad when it comes to phrases related to cars)

But again the drive upto the point of breakdown was worth it. On the way up you can see the the Solang Valley which has one of the best ski slopes in the country.

Overall, it was the best week for me in the year 2002 (as all I was doing was chilling out, sipping cups n cups of herbal tea, staring out of the mountains - its so much better that staring at the computers at office)

There is lots more to do in & around Manali, suggest you visit https://himachaltourism.nic.in & https://kullu.net for more information.

What I learnt on the trip was that ''The mountains are beautiful, but can be mean.''