Shimla to Mandi

Sunken Garden in Mandi

Lonely Mule

Women at the Durga Temple

Shiva Bar in Mandi

Shiva Linga at Temple

Beautiful old Hindu Temple on River Bank

Cremation Fire in Mandi

Sikh Gurdwara (Temple) in Mandi

Chinese Food in our Hotel Room

We left Shimla and headed towards the city of Mandi. This will be a way stop on the long drive to Minali our ultimate destination. The roads are narrow, twisty and washed out in some places. We are high up in the mountains, then drive down to a valley and then drive up again to go over the next and higher mountain. There are lots of buses, trucks and motorcycles on the road.

To us the drive is freaky and almost like a fun house experience. It seems the vehicles just manage to avoid accidents. But Vijay our intrepid driver for all of the years we have been in India, takes it in stride. No issue, no problem. This is Indian driving, it is safe.

We are spending the night in a hotel that is labeled “Vegetarian Only”. No meat, no alcohol, mediocre wifi. We have brought wine with us from Shimla, and decide to order and eat in our room. That way we can drink our wine with dinner. The service, food choice was either Indian or Chinese (there are a lot of Chinese Restaurants in India). We ordered Chinese and it actually was good. It went well with our wine.

We drove into Mandi (it is an old city, obviously poor). We walked around the center of town where there is a sunken garden and came across a Hindu Durga Temple where women were performing a dance to honor Durga.

Here is a short movie clip of the women dancing and singing.

We visited several Hindu Temples over 600 years old that are still active. Across the river we could see the cremation fires going. It was quite a sight.  On the drive from the temple we watched monkeys scampering across house fronts looking for food.

Here is a short video of monkeys scampering across houses.