Middle of January and still no snow. Lalaji, the "crorepatti" (millionaire) of the village uses the opportunity to continue building work on his massive hotel. About 40 to 50 workers and labourers are crawling all over the place to complete the concrete roof of the third floor. It's mostly manual labour: people carry sand and pebbles in baskets on their head to the cement mixer; a small rickety improvised lift brings the mix up to the roof where it is carried and distributed with the help of lots of people and old plastic sacks.

20/01/2003 Goshal village

Still blue sky, no snow in sight, warm sun. Good for a little walk along the Beas river to Goshal to visit Mani, a girl whom I promised some photographs of her and her family a few months ago and who gave me a homily that I was a few months late really. Goshal is a truly idyllic looking village a bit north of Manali. The way back over narrow hill paths offers phantastic views over the now barren patchy orchard fields.
more about Goshal...

22/01/2003 Wool, woolly, wolle...

Winter activities involve a lot of wool. First it's being spun either by a little wooden spindle which is turned by hand (like children playing with spinning tops) or with help of a small electrical machine. It's not as easy as it looks though, after several tries I only managed to produce a thread of a maximum length of half a metre - which is not awfully useful for weaving a jacket. The thread is then doubled with funny contraptions, it almost looks like as if Rabet is playing an instrument.

28/01/2003 first snow

Yipeeaaahhh, winter in Manali starts and so finally it's there: the long awaited first snow this year. Heavy big white flakes which cover everything fairly quickly and dampens all sounds. The orchards are beautiful now; if it was quiet before it's genuinely dead and deserted now with most people burying themselves in their houses, huddling around the tandoor (oven).

31/01/2003 washing in the snow

There actually isn't an awful lot of snow falling - or rather it's partly melting as it falls, which results in regular thundering "cadong" noises when a whole load of snow slides from the roofs. Dangerous time to walk near any sloping roofs! Habits change with the snow - since the normal washing and laundry area in the guesthouse is covered with snow it's time to do the dishes in front of the kitchen door.

31/01/2003 Hadimba temple Dunghri

Later in the day it stops snowing, so we're going for a wander up to the Hadimba temple in Dunghri forest. Hadimba is another form of Kali (or the local version of her) who demands the occasional live animal sacrifice. The 500 year old temple is one of the more beautiful ones around this area. Inside it looks quite bizarre with its kind of rock-cave "altar". Unfortunately the snow is disappearing quickly, half of the heavy white mass has already slid of Hadimba temple's pagoda like three tiered wooden roof.

03/02/2003 Snow is melting already

The winter didn't last long: the snow is melting rapidly. So, what was that? A 4-day winter?? This can't have been all! The thumps from falling lumps of snow have stopped because there's no snow left to slide from trees or roofs. My cute little snow cow is gone, a few yellowish spots of snow remain in the orchards and that's it.

09/02/2003 more woolly procedures

First it was the spinning, then the thread preparation, after that the weaving of the jacket cloth and now it's time for shrinking the lot. It's not as easy as to just letting it soak in warm soapy water, it has to be "massaged" properly. For a few hours Rabet and his kids take their turns in stamping on the freshly woven woollen material, swivelling it around with their feet. Bleeding feet is a common result of this procedure. After drying it has shrunk by about 20 percent and is ready for the tailor to be transformed into one of the warm local jackets.

11/02/2003 Vashisht

Today we wanted to go to Solang, to see the big "skiing resort". Unfortunately the expected hourly bus runs only 4 times a day: 8 am, 12 pm and later. It's 9 am, so what to do if you refuse to pay the greedy taxi driver the double normal rate. The weather makes the decision for us: it's clouding over therefore not worth bothering with Solang anyway. We head to nearby Vashisht instead. A few years ago it was pleasant there but since then a lot of building has been going on. Now it's a stuffy, crowdy place. We were shocked to find that they had rebuild the stylish old well weathered and worn temple, in which the public baths of the hot springs are contained. It has been rebuilt in a pseudo old style with stone and wood, but the old charm is gone.

Kirsten apr 2003	<< previous next >>
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