K to K
We met our friend's dad on the balcony and he was very nice. Our friend turned up and had walked through the apple orchards from his house. He had to be at an important paragliding event at 11am but we just had time to visit our favourite cafe for breakfast. Chai and giant aloo paratha once again!
After breakfast we were dropped at the Manali ISBT (bus station) and very quickly said goodbye bfore jumping straight on a bus to Kullu. We weren't exactly sure where we would end up today. It was a little far to Dharamshala and Kullu offered mainly tame white water rafting ...
We drank tea at the Kullu bus station and made our choice to go to Kasol. Kasol has a reputation for hippies, people from Israel and non compliance. We had spoken to a few people and they had said that a lot of the hippies had moved out and the Israelis had gone home because of the war. Whether these particular non compliants grow in the winter we we're not sure but it is not our thing! Anyway it is supposed to be pretty so we thought we would give Kasol a try.
We arrived after a much longer journey than we expected. It took more like 3 hours but we expected it to take just one. The bus was electric and seemed to struggle sometimes with the mountainous terrain.
First job was to find a hotel. Our phone apps showed some fairly cheap ones so we checked them out. They were cheap for a reason. There was either far too many 'wacky backy' pipes on display or Trance music playing full volume. What have we let ourselves in for was beginning to cross our minds!
We decided to up the room budget a little and found a nice guest house for just a little more. It seemed quiet and although had some interesting flourescent paintings, was way better and more sophisticated.
We dropped our bags in the room and headed out to explore. It was dark now so we couldn't see much of the natural beauty of Kasol. What we did find, however, was many bars, tourist price restaurants selling a mix of Israel's finest food, plus pizzas, momos, maggi etc.etc. It appeared that Kasol was now struggling a little with its identity. Many Indian tourists lined the streets and a large number of fancy hotels were appearing.
We didn't find anything of particular interest but we found a chatty chai wallah, whose son won some medals in what seemed to be the winter Paralympics. He showed us him and his son being interviewed on TV. He had a small fire burning that toppled over and the burning logs went everywhere. Not a problem. He just picked up the red hot burning coal and put them back in! We searched for a standard fair Indian restaurant but didn't really find one. However, we settled on one that was more Indian than the others and actually had people eating in it. A lot of the others were empty.
Back at the hotel a nice fire was burning in the courtyard. Bonfires seem to be a thing in Kasol. We grabbed a chair each and sat and warmed ourselves up! The friendly lady owner was cooking her corn in the fire and offered us one to share. It was very hot at first but very tasty.
