After arriving in Manali after the 16 hour bus journey we were really tired and it didn't help to be accosted by twenty local businesmen offering various taxis, hotels and restaurants. We managed to gather our wits and seek out a reasonable hotel. Once we found one most of us including some of the leaders sat down exhausted in the lobby whilst we waited for rooms. The view from ours was fantastic, we could see, when the clouds went away, all the way down the valley. Walking down the street one day we saw an elephant just standing there. A couple of days later we saw another, we got quite used to them in the end. We went on a couple of acclimatisation treks in order to get used to the altitude. There were many more good views to be had here.
Most evenings we ate in restaurants that had a wide range of cuisine. They had Tibetan specialities including Then-Thuk, Mo-mo's and Thukpa, a huge range of chinese dishes and of course a huge selection of Indian food from all over the sub continent. I decided to have one evening the spiciest curry they had to offer and I asked for it to be made extra spicy. When it came I tried it sparingly. My first thought was,"It's not that bad" then the after burner kicked in and my mouth burned.
On one of the day treks we visited gallery of local art. It was fantastice to an example of local culture whilst looking out on gorgeous vistas. After 3 days of relaxing we were about to experiance our second bus journey, 2 days long.
