This is Suresh from Bangalore. I would like to share my travel experience to Manali.
During march 2005 we (me and my wife Priya) planned to go to Manali. I have reserved a hotel (Hotel Kunzam, Manali) from Bangalore HPTDC office. I preferred this hotel because this is a three start hotel located at the heart of the Manali town and buses to all major cities ply to/from here only. We can also choose a book a package tour from HPTDC office.
Finally the much awaited day came, We have traveled to Delhi by Flight and from there we took a bus to reach Manali. It was a very nice journey from Delhi to Manali where the most of the strech goes through the beautiful banks of Beas river and one can see snow cap mountains while approaching Manali. Really it was a thrilling experience and it is a treat for eyes. In fact we are very fond of SNOW and were eagerly waiting when we can touch the snow.
Finally we reached Manali by 8AM in the morning and weather is very chilling. We checked into the hotel. After getting fresh and having breakfast we hired a cab for local site seeing (especially for snow point). Here one important if you go in off season (before April) you can bargain like any thing and you get great discounts in hotel tariffs also. The cab guy took us to the snow point (which is the farthest place you can go on the way to Rhotang pass, after this the road will not be accessible.) On the way you can find lot of shops that rents shoes, jackets, long coats. We selected some shoes and long coats and continued our journey. Then we entered the real thrilling world of snow. There we found plenty of tourists playing in snow. There we took a package for snow games which include skiing, scooter ride, photo session etc costed around 1000 bucks. It’s a thrilling experience and we tried skiing with the help of the trainer for about one hour and we played with snow like kids. We played..played till evening and with great difficulty returned back to hotel with lot of sweet memories in camera and in our minds.
After getting refreshed we went out for shopping. Evening weather was really cold that you should carry woolen cloths to cover entire body. We bought some shawls and handicrafts for friends and relatives. To be frank we didn’t find much interesting stuff to shop and more over things are expensive. But you can get good stuff to eat.
On the next day again we hired a taxi for local site seeing. The guy took us to places like Hadimba temple(very nice place to spend some time, this place was nicely shot in the film ROJA directed by Maniratnam), Manu temple, club house and vashist hot springs(which is very great to see hot water in so cold atmosphere, but the worst part of it is that it is not maintained well).
Finally in the evening we have started back to Delhi by HPTDC bus.