The plan for the day was to do a day trip to Rohtang pass, a popular high altitude pass en route to Kashmir. Unluckily for us, today was a rainy and cloudy day. Undeterred, we started our trip early because it was a 3 hour drive from Manali.
It was pouring rain all through the way to Rohtang, and we could not see ANYTHING outside our windows. The few times it cleared, it looked like this…
Finally, we made it up the pass, after a short break at one of the eateries on the way.
It was literally freezing rain up here. On a dry day, you could walk up the hill, and get a view of the valley below. On a day like today, all you saw was cloud cover.
After spending a few minutes at the pass, we sadly resigned to our fate that this is all we are going to see this day. We started making our way down, and the clouds starting clearing…revealing beautiful valleys below!
We stopped by a roadside waterfall on the way down.
We drove back down towards Manali, and reached around 4pm. Since we had time to kill, our driver suggested lunch and entertainment at HimValley entertainment. This was a theme park of sorts, with an array of activities and food. When we went, we found it empty and not very interesting. The food was decent and thali style. There were some rides for kids. There were also an adventure circuit that we tried.
After HimValley, we were dropped off at Old Manali. Another section of Van Vihar park is found here, so we walked through it to the river’s edge.
Old Manali has a few shops and restaurants, but nothing too exciting. We made our way back to our cottage for dinner.
