We’ve identified a multi-day hike above Manali on well used trails. Start from 1900m up to a campsite at 3100m, day trip to 4500m, and return to town on day 3.
We order 8 deep fried sandwiches and 5 samosas for our three day trip. The cook seems concerned about our dietary choices. Now that the monsoon has stopped, everywhere that’s flat is used for drying grass. Locals using small hand scythes to cut grass for winter animal feed Burying a pipe in the trail for irrigation. As soon as we took this photo, the workers all crowded around to get their own pictures with the foreigners. A concrete water tank under construction. All dug by hand, gravel/sand for cement brought in by mules.
These 10 horses are for 6 trekkers, 1 guide, and two horse men. 10 day trip. Need a better camera. Some rustling in the bushes alerted us to a dozen langoor monkeys watching us.
At our campsite, there is several shepherds (All men, not overly friendly) and hundreds of sheep/goats.
Sheep shearing. These are bags of wool headed down 1200m.
This guy would have pop-eye forearms. Street dogs that followed some other trekkers up 1200m from town, in the hopes of a handout.
We are happy to see the dense vegetation getting cleaned up.
As the sun went down, the goats rolled in. A good complement to sheep, since goats prefer weeds and shrubs.
Now Marta wants a goatThese baby goats are a couple hours old. Momma seems very unconcerned, we watch and worry. A perfect campsite – what could go wrong?
After a couple hours of this, I decided our India travels were over
Time to admit defeat. India has nothing for us as a wilderness destination. All the spectacular treks require sleeping at 4000-5000m. Nothing is documented, backpacking food is not available, and if you sleep low, there is a really good chance dogs will ruin your night.
We pack up and go down to Manali.
Some of the dogs we found sleeping around our tent in the morning. So cute and friendly and so annoying when the sun goes down.
Well fed dogs. Getting ready for a wild night
This bull only got the attention of street vendors concerned about getting raided
We buy bus tickets to New Delhi. 14 hour bus ride.
While at the bus station in the morning, a Nepalese man surreptitiously tries to sell us a few cordyceps. Our bus departure gets closer and closer and none of the buses look like they are a first class Volvo bus. Finally we ask – our bus is a kilometre down the road. We met these Byelorussians on the bus from Manali. They negotiated our hotel in Delhi for us. Modi (Indian prime minister) is definitely a marketer. His face is all over. I wish them luck cleaning up India. Marta tried buying food for street kids a few times. They never ate the food, which seemed weird to me. New Delhi is the core of Delhi, and is the seat of government. Everything was built new in the 1920s. Humayun’s tomb. A day of hiking around New Delhi is exhausting.
After the tomb tour, we get attacked again by aggressive taxi drivers. I’m hungry, heat stressed. We cross under an underpass and through random chance enter a Muslim enclave (Nizamuddin) India is exotic and interesting again.
This Islam convert from New Jersey bought us fresh squeezed sugar cane juice. After weeks of generally uninspiring village food, I want to try everything. They fail to convert Marta, but I’ll worship anything if they have the best food. In the middle of all this exotic Muslim food, we find Nihari Beef stew, which I’ve made at home twice. My version is just as good, but eating in an alley in India adds some ambience.
Early morning flight to Warsaw. Another encounter with the Indian state – airports are always stressful, and when combined with lack of optimization and govt employee glacial slowness… even exchanging our leftover rupees is a nightmare. Fortunately I meet an Israeli who has the opposite problem!
Would we go back to India? It’s an incredible country – great people, great food. Without tolerance for high altitude, there isn’t much hiking and scrambling. If you like people, cities and different cultures, India is top notch and cheap!
Marta and Chester's Maleficent Adventures 