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by SS at 2:48 pm on Monday 14th September

10th September-
Thanks to The Moosra's family contacts, we met some truly fascinating people today and visited parts of Himachal Pradesh not usually open to tourists. One of these contacts is a high ranking officer at a local Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) station and invited us for lunch.

He and his wife lead interesting lives. They mostly conversed with The Moosra in Hindi, some of which I managed to pick up. Conversation covered all sorts of topics, from the political system in England to the various species of animals that coexisted in India. His parents spoke a pure form of Hindi which I barely understood.

His wife mentioned in conversation that she had once acted as a Doctor for an expedition to Mt. Everest. One of the climbers who made it to the summit worked at a nearby mountaineering centre and we had the privilege to meet him. His main point was that while you can prepare physically as much as possible, you need the mental strength,(the mountain has to like you).

Before dinner we decided to take a drink at a cafe/restaurant called Lazy Dog. This was more akin to the lounges you see scattered around London, with comfy sofas, chilled out background music and pleasant mood lighting. In addition though, was a superb view of the nearby river. Further delights were to follow; The Moosra sipped mint tea whilst smoking blueberry shisha, I caught up on e-mails on the complementary wi-fi whilst enjoying a Carribean Hot Chocolate (key ingredient: rum).

1 comment posted so far
Anish wrote at 8:09 pm on Thu 17th Sep -
haha...love it!

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by SS at 2:46 pm on Monday 14th September

9th September-
After a curious mix of mushroom chilli curry, vegetable tempura and a bottle of rhododendron wine for lunch, my stomach is currently experiencing new and previously unheard of levels of disturbance. The Moosra and I are currently in Manali, a town in Himachal Pradesh, after a lengthy and exhausting sixteen hour bus ride. To the bus operator's credit, the seats were comfortable. Unfortunately, the Indian roads (and drivers) more than undid this.

As we entered the winding roads uphill towards the mountainous areas, our driver's true rally spirit started to shine through. This ruled out any faint notion we may have had of sleeping (as was normal for that period of the night). Instead, we clutched the back of the seat directly in front and braced ourselves for the highly probable impact to follow. Indeed, at one point, the driver pulled aside to let a heavily laden lorry pass and was unable to bring the coach back onto the road for a good ten minutes.

Many highways that we took were shut - the driver had no choice but to take the parallel dirt tracks. I kid you not, the rutted roads combined with unduly soft suspension meant the angle of the floor to the horizon oscillated constantly up to 45 degrees either side. The Moosra and I have now thought of an optimum strategy to persue should the inevitable occur and the vehicle should roll.

Nevertheless, we survived and arrived in the middle of the morning to a damp and muddy bus station. The weather in Manali has been dire all day and when we ventured out for lunch, we were quickly drenched in the thirty seconds it took us to locate an umbrella vendor. A wander around town later (encountering some tourists who were clearly here for contraband, and consuming some unsuitably cold milkshakes), we took an auto (rickshaw) back to our hotel to sit the rain out. Nitin Sawhney and Coldplay are blaring out of a portable speaker while the monsoon rain lashes against the window of our chalet hotel. Politics and philosophy are much discussed while we wait for the heavens to smile favourably on us.

It's anything but an ordinary summer holiday!

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