I arrived in the morning, pretty wrecked from the long bus journey. Leaving the bus I stepped over the taxi-hotel-agents and decided to walk to old manali after far too much sitting I did not want to spend money to do more of it. I did not come far though, because close to the bus station there was a omlette place, where I got a spicy tasty one on toast, accompanied by tea. It was nice and the guy charged me half a dollar for that little miracle bringing me back from exhaustion. It feels good if you don't overpay without negotiating, it feels like respect.
In the center of Manali I found a wifi-cafe and got stuck over a couple of espressos and a chocolate-ball. I read e-mails tried to find some maps and read a bit more in my book.
In old Manali I found the famous Drifters, they did not have a room, but nice music and tea in the bar. I felt very peaceful there. Then I looked for another guesthouse, found the Manu Temple on the way, lingered and finally, after checking a couple of other guesthouses, got my room with a nice view on the south-west of the valley.
The rest of the day I spent treasure hunting, in old Manali there are a lot of shops selling handcrafted cloths, and there are other boutiques with kashmiri handcraft and a lot of other stuff.
After a good nights sleep, hiking was on the program. Only after a good night I added a good mornings sleep. Then I had a long breakfast and only after that I finally took on the house mountain. The trails were beautiful, sometimes they would cross plantations of apple trees and all sorts of other stuff and I would get lost on the smaller trails used by the farmers to access their plantations. There were no signs for hikers and to my surprise I could not make out a trail leading on top of the mountains, instead I followed the valley upstream and completed a loop back to Manali.
The day ended in heavy rain, it started slowly before I reached Manali and once I was back and under the shower it started poring.
The last day before my return to Delhi was rainy, the clouds hung low and instead of going for a long hike I turned over in my bed. Hours later I started reading, went on the balcony and watched the water dripping from the roof when I turned pages.
I left my room only in the late afternoon, strolled through the streets of Manali, found a couple treasures more and returned shortly before dark. At this time of the day the clouds rose far up into the atmosphere and I got a glimpse at the surrounding peaks of four, five thousand meters in altitude. Crazy mountains! three days is by far not enough to explore even a corner of this mountain range, the side-valleys swallow you and don't spit you out before long walks. But it was enough to find some calm again. The climate corresponds more to my nature. The air chills in the evening and doesn't reach the same high temperatures as I faced last week. Finally my fingers are not permanently swollen anymore.
It was too short a stay up here but absolutely worth while. One last night of sleep before a 48 hours trip back to what I call home, back to the roots, hoping they are still strong enough to anker me, root me to my dear earth after a long time that felt like being a leaf in the wind. These 48 hours to come will probably feel longer than the ten months that brought me here. But before that trip I still got this one night of sleep.
