Sunday, 7 September 2014

Himachal 03.09. - 06.09.

In the evening of the 2nd of September me and my friend took a bus to a place called Manali, which is located in the state Himachal Pradesh of India. As you may conclude from the name of the state, most villages in this state are in the Himalaya mountains. So is also Manali, the village we went to.

We arrived in this village on the next day, so on Wednesday at around 12 o'clock noon. Not only this village but most of the places in Himachal are very peaceful. No annoying Riksha driver's begging you to take you to some destination, no street kids trying to sell you a box of crayons, no honking from the crowded traffic. And the air is so nice and clear. Not as dusty as in the streets of big cities in southern India.
Me and my friend stayed in a hotel in old Manali, where we had a very nice view on the valley of Manali. From this hotel you couldn't hear anything except the sound of the river which was running through that village. I must admit that the landscape in Manali reminded me a bit of my home, the black forrest, with all these pine trees.

river running through old Manali
On thursday , the 4th of September, me and my friend went on a one day trip to a lake which i think was in a height of about 4300 meters. The name of this lake is Chandrataal - the Lake of Moon. In order to get there we had to take a pass road called "Gramphu-Batal-Kaza Road" for several hours.


Sometimes on the way a herds of goats and sheep crossed our way. So we had to wait until all these animals had passed by, like in the picture down below. 

waiting for a herd of goats to pass by

Sometimes other animals like donkeys were blocking the road. So we had to honk a bit, until they made the street free. =) Actually i am not sure whether these were donkeys or ponys.

donkeys blocking our way to the lake

donkeys on the road in spiti valley

Some of these landscapes on the way to the lake looked really interesting, almost like from another planet.




About 1 or 2 hours away from the lake, we made a small stop for lunch in a small  hut. There we had some traditional mountain food. I don't understand why but in the mountains even the simplest things seem to taste delicious.

hut were we had lunch in spiti valley

The girl in the next picture is by the way my friend from Delhi, who came to travel to Himachal with me.

my friend having lunch

After lunch we continued our way to the lake, and went trough more moon-like landscaped areas.
(Well of course on the moon there are no rivers and clouds etc...).
The name of the valley we had to pass through was "Spiti Valley".






Finally after, i don't know, maybe 6 hours of driving along these pass roads , we finally reached the lake. Those flags which you can see at this lake are tibetan flags, which have usually prayers written on the flags.

tibetan flags at the lake of moon in Chandrataal
When we arrived at this lake, we had quite good weather, because the sun was shining a bit =) .
So we decided to go for a walk around the lake. I guess at some point we just stopped and enjoyed watching the beautiful landscape.

lake of moon , with mountains in the background
At some point it became really windy and cold around that lake, so i decided to wear that scarf around my head to keep myself warm. I had bought this scarf somewhere on the way to Chandrataal for about 300 rupis.

me at lake of the moon

me again

I must admit that until now , i guess this is one of the coolest trips i have done so far in India. :)
On our last day we went trekking to some waterfall from Manali. But of course the trip we had done the day before, was difficult to keep up with.
I guess this is sometimes a bit pitty. If you travel a lot and you have, lets say, seen the Grand Canyon, then sometimes a waterfall, which is actually quite pretty, might appear a bit boring, compared to the Canyon. I guess it's just important that after doing such trips, you have to keep appreciating the simple things in life, because they can also be beautiful. You just have to give them a chance.


No comments:

Post a Comment