Manali – paradise calling
Manali, the famous hill station located in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh is situated at a height of 2050 m (6730 ft) in the lap of Himalayas. Located about 544 km away from New Delhi and 309 km from Chandigarh, the town boast of two tourist seasons from April-July (summer season) and Dec-Jan (winter season). Though the average temperature ranges from 4 °C (39 °F) to 26 °C (79 °F) over the year, you can travel anytime and needless to say, you will fall in love with this place.
We (a group of four) decided to visit this place in November 2018 hoping that the place would be less crowded and more scenic. We booked our hotel a week before (since I belong to travel industry, bookings is not really a difficult affair). It is a 13 hours road journey from Gurgaon so we thought to opt for a night cab thinking that the next day could be utilized in exploring the region. The journey was supposed to start from Gurgaon via Pinjore (pick up point for 2 people) and then to Manali.
As we tried booking for a cab one day prior to our travel, we learnt about a landslide at Auli and got to know that it might take a day to get it cleared. We already had our hotel booked, arranged all logistics and were anxiously waiting for this trip to happen. We kept tracking the situation, kept on talking to various cab drivers and as the day passed, learnt that our taxi driver had hiked his prices and hence we started switching from one operator to another. Finally, we got the news of road clearance and one of the driver agreed to take us in the morning.
Our journey started at 12:30 am from Gurgaon and we reached at Pinjore at 6:00 am. After a quick tea and round of biscuits, we continued our journey. Navigating through Google Maps and looking for a short cut is the most common travel trick these days which eats up a phone’s battery. Ours was no exception. Since the highway was completely jammed because of the fresh landslides, we took a shorter path. We further travelled 170 km to reach Mandi (also known as Varanasi of hills/ Choti Kashi) which is also a very beautiful town with tourist spots such as Prashar lake, Jalori Pass and Pandoh Dam. We wanted to reach Manali as early as possible and were a bit apprehensive because of the weather hence we continued our journey without losing ourselves to the beauty of the place. The difficult track started as we reached Auli and the regular traffic jams and the on-going construction made the journey quite tiring. We finally checked in our hotel, Amara resort at 9 pm – cold at night juxtaposed with the recurring thought of the whole day being wasted made our night more uncomfortable. Our resort was located at Naggar – surrounded by beautiful pine trees and breathtaking Mountain View which somehow made us cheerful.
Next day, our plan to go to Rohtang was dropped as the route was intractable. The nearest point to see fresh snow was Gulaba – 27 Kms from Manali. We started our ride after breakfast and were appalled to see so many tourists (wasted another 2 hrs reaching there). Gulaba was beautiful with adequate snow to play, however. We had our customary Maggie with tea and corn, and started our return journey for Solang. But did we reach there? You guessed it correctly – No 🙁 Again, hordes of vehicles and a traffic jam of 3 hrs, so we decided wisely to reach Mall road and enjoy local Manali sight-seeing. We had our dinner in Corner House on mall road (which is a must try cafe) and vented out our travel frustration for the next 2 hours after reaching the hotel (which was a pleasant 15 minutes drive from mall road) before finally retiring to the warmth of our bed.
We started early to reach Solang to extract maximum out of our last day. You can take cable car to reach to a point where you can enjoy snowfall. Next, you can do paragliding followed by scooter ride and zip lining at snow point. There is a skiing point and Anjani Mahadev temple to visit. We enjoyed most of the activities. Post which, we went to Mall road for a quick lunch before commencing our return journey to Gurgaon via Kullu and Pinjore. There is a lot of construction going on and I really wish for it to be finished so that travellers can enjoy a speedy yet comfortable ride.
Hitchhike recommends:
- Places to visit: Gulaba, Solang Valley, Rohtang Pass, Kullu and Manikaran on the way, Hidimba Temple, Manu Temple and Mall road (of course !!!)
- Places to eat: Corner House, Cafe 1947 and Johnson’s cafe
- Hotel (Budget to Mid range): White Stone Resort, Amara Resort, Sun Park Resort & Allure Grand
- Transportation: Take an overnight Volvo to reach there and avoid cab (take a local cab there for local sight-seeing)
- Accessories: Shoes (highly recommended for snow) and a comfortable yet warm jacket which you will find there at a very nominal price.
Happy hitchhiking!!!
