The drive to Manali a a long one, we has to stay overnight in Keylong on the way. The drive was gorgeous though! You really can't fully take it all in unless you are there. The mountains are just so huge and majestic, just so darn impressive! The scenery was quite varied, even just from looking on your right and then to your left you could see two completely different kinds of rocks. Sheerly sliced shale on one side and crumbly dry sandstone on the other.
We were really excited to sleep in a tent in Keylong, we thought it would be a neat experience, just like camping back at home (which we do lots). We were VERY sorely mistaken! The tents were in a hotel parking lot! As for an atmospheric camping setting, you can't get much worse than that. We were so disappointed by the tents that we went inside and booked an overpriced, not-so-clean government hotel room. I can't complain about the buffet dinner though, it was pretty good, just the usual Indian fix- roti, dal, curry, rice. Breakfast was nothing to rave about, just some really greasy roti things and curry. After another day of scenic driving we arrived in Manali.
We were surprised by how similar the climate and vegetation were compared to home. There were even some of the same wild flowers, we notice while hiking in BC. We had a look around that day and the next day we did some shopping. There were so many power outages in Manali, several hours per day there is no electricity and it's at totally random times too. Leh was really bad for power outages too. I got a poncho sewed for me and of course, while the guy was sewing the power went out. Since it is totally normal, the guy sewed the rest by spinning the wheel manually.
Once we were all finished our Manali shopping we waited in the hotel until 5pm and got on the night bus back to Delhi. I'm sad that we are finished with all this wonderful driving in the Himalayas, but at the same time I'm glad that all this driving-on-the-edge-of-cliff-constantly is over. It was always worrisome being up so high on such a narrow road. At one spot we looked over the cliff and there were three trucks turned into piles of rubble laying on the valley floor below. They had all driven straight off the side of the cliff, probably due to bad road conditions...the roads up there are only open for 4 months per year, due to excessive snowfall in the winter.
Those mountains have some serious skiing potential, but there is pretty much no infrastructure here in the winter, because of the mass amounts of snow. Speaking of all this coldness, we stopped in a town called Drass, in between Srinigar and Leh for a tea break. There was a sign there that said Drass was the second coldest inhabited place in the world.
Once we were all finished our Manali shopping we waited in the hotel until 5pm and got on the night bus back to Delhi. I'm sad that we are finished with all this wonderful driving in the Himalayas, but at the same time I'm glad that all this driving-on-the-edge-of-cliff-constantly is over. It was always worrisome being up so high on such a narrow road. At one spot we looked over the cliff and there were three trucks turned into piles of rubble laying on the valley floor below. They had all driven straight off the side of the cliff, probably due to bad road conditions...the roads up there are only open for 4 months per year, due to excessive snowfall in the winter.
Those mountains have some serious skiing potential, but there is pretty much no infrastructure here in the winter, because of the mass amounts of snow. Speaking of all this coldness, we stopped in a town called Drass, in between Srinigar and Leh for a tea break. There was a sign there that said Drass was the second coldest inhabited place in the world.
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