Into The Wild

Day 3

Manali ; 08.09.08

The next day all of us woke up late and had a lazy breakfast. We had slated the day for shopping for trip essentials like frozen food, cup noodles, stove and kerosene. I had to get myself a backpack, a pair of gloves and some more essentials for the rest of the guys. We also submitted our bikes for service and re-tuning for the high altitudes that we'd be covering.For our shopping Gyan enlisted the help of his friend Gagan, who took us into the alleys and nooks for bargains. We walked down to mall road, gathered the necessities and decided we'd head to "The Lazy Dog",a place that came highly recommended by Anshu. And boy , was it a place!!! I told Anshu I loved him for bringing us into that heavenly place!! I have been to Manali before, but I have never come across such a place as this. Its in old Manali, hard to miss, owned by a South Korean friend of Anshu, Yon, and its atop a rock cliff with the river Beas gushing below - providing a soothing acoustic bliss. We all shared the same views - the place was absolutely stunning.And Yon was the perfect host, checking on the dishes himself, and serving us some of the best tasting dishes I have ever had of normal rice and momos. I urge everyone visiting Manali to just visit this place once, and you'll be hooked. Infact, we all decided we'd book our IOC holiday home for some weekend and just laze in "The Lazy Dog" for the entire weekend. Kenny, you up for a weekend trip in your scorpio?

After a feisty meal, we all hunted for the leftover shopping stuff from the market and collected our bikes from the mechanic. Then we headed for the holiday home and distributed all the food among ourselves. I was nominated the cook for the journey,and I had to learn how to light up the kerosene stove in the process. We had all told Yon that we'd be coming to his place again for dinner and some chit chat by the fireplace. But once inside the holiday home, and the dinner already served, we decided to sit out and have the company of an "Old Monk" there itself. So, we started off another session of rum and coke in the lounge, a warm melee of people looking out to have a good ride the next morning. Perhaps the only person unhappy at this point of time was Jill. He was of the opinion that we should all stay back at Manali for one more day and chill out. But he was outvoted , the rest of the junta's views were like " there's more to see ahead". Oh , and Nawab also got lambasted by Gyan here!! Gyan said that had it not been for the rescheduling, we'd all have left one day earlier and it was dry the previous day, and so he wouldn't have had the fall before Kullu. I second that. Infact, everyone did. Nawab, you turncoat, are you listening?

Well, the session went on into late hours, and I abandoned the guys, citing reasons of sleep deprivation!! I could still hear the guys having a blast long after I had settled into my bed and was onto the second playlist of my walkman.

This might be also a good time to introduce the trippers photographically:

Standing left to right are : Vikram , Me, Kenny, Jill, Gyan and Anshu. And the cottage we stayed in Manali, one of the IOC holiday home huts there.

Vikram was on his Thunderbird, Kenny on his Electra, Jill was on his P200, Gyan on his Karizma, Anshu on his Electra 5 speed and I was on my P200.