A walk in the woods and back to D'sala

For our final full day in Manali we wound up yet again at Dylan's.

We did try the cookies, and they were in fact delicious.

See that guy in the bottom right corner of the second photo? He's a crew dude for Cirque du Soleil. He and his gf/travel partner are from Montreal. We had a fun little conversation with them about the awesomeness of the Cirque and how cool it must be to travel all over the world with it.

The proprietor of the shop is the guy standing behind him making someone's beverage. At one point he asked about my tattoo, so that led to a discussion about knitting and how everyone in the tribe he's from learns to knit. We talked about crops (apparently they grow some of the only peas in India) and knitting and all kinds of things. He said he'd try to find a place in Manali for me to buy good, local yarn; it wasn't very helpful, though, because we didn't have much more time in town. I was surprised at how difficult it had been to find locally-produced yarn in the Himalayan mountains.

We decided to go for a walk to Vashisht, a little town with temples and hot springs. Here are some scenery pix for you...

We eventually reached the hot springs (I found a little shop with some supposedly local yarn along the way; it looks handspun and it's definitely in need of a good washing. What should I make? A shawl, maybe?) and saw some more intricate carvings on the sides of the temples there.

Hot water straight from the springs.

From there we took a tuk-tuk back to Manali and had a nice, relaxing evening.

We walked back from New Manali to Old Manali through the park.

Coke made with real sugar, and a quesadilla that was surprisingly good.

We got foot/leg and shoulder massages!

The next morning it was time to go, so we bade farewell to one last Manali sunrise.

Bye bye, Manali. Perhaps we'll meet again.

And then it was around 7 hours to get back to Dharamsala. There weren't enough people to fill the minibus we were originally scheduled to take, so we got to ride in a taxi for a fraction of the usual taxi price. Along the way we stopped for lunch at a hotel where I saw this guy making fresh naan & roti.

Yum!

With that, I am back in Dharamsala for a while. Brij and I spent the evening watching soccer, eating momos, and trading movies & music. So far today all I've done is slept in, written this blog, and half-assedly helped plan a trip to Rajasthan (the others are doing most of the work). Oh, and looking at potential jobs for when I get back. Does anyone know of a place that will need someone in, say, January? The catering biz gets a little slow after the holidays and I'm going to need some kind of income to pick up the slack, especially since I'm using up my savings while I'm here in India. It's alright, though.........