Snowball Fight - 01/19/2013

In the midst of battle

BEN - We woke up to a bright, sunny day, but about 2 and a half feet of snow.  We excitedly packed our bags and cleaned up our room, anxious to leave and head into town.  We went downstairs, and immediately realized our foolhardiness.  The roads were still completely impassible.  The guy at the front desk said that maybe by the afternoon we could hit the road, but not yet.  I talked to him a bit and he said that this had been a big storm, even by Manali standards, and it might take a bit to get everything back up and running.  It looked like we were staying here another night.  We ordered sandwiches and ate them for lunch as we watched a movie.  Gabby's stomach isn't feeling right and she is battling with a bit of diarrhea  which is never fun.  We played cards and looked out over the snow covered scenery, absolutely beautiful   WE were both feeling a bit stir crazy, trapped in our room, so we decided to go for a short walk outside.  We weren't expecting what we walked out to; WAR!

Not driving anywhere today

Snowballs flew in every direction, as all the local kids were out, and punishing all who dared walk outside.  We obviously joined the fray as we walked.  It was good fun and my hands were soon numb.  We found that the locals were very friendly in the snow, everyone outside clearing off their roofs or the road.  It was an awesome winter wonderland, the one Gabby and I had both sorely missed during Christmas.  As we played in the snow, we stumbled into something even more unexpected, Americans!  We were far outside of  town and hadn't seen white skin in days.  They were a young couple from Seattle with a 16 month old baby.  They lived in one of the small villages, and their plan is to eventually open their own trekking company here.  They actually delivered their baby in the village!  That is insane.  The woman admitted she was completely unprepared for this and would not do it again.  Gabby chatted with her as I plied the guy for things to do in the area.  They were very nice people and we ended up walking a long way with them; I think both parties interested in the foreign, yet familiar coincidence.  They had met in college choir and sang in an a cappella group together.  Bizarre.  We had a good conversation and eventually parted ways and exchanged email addresses, in case we wanted to meet for dinner sometime, and were ever able to leave our hotel.  We got back to our room cold and wet, but happy for the conversation and fresh air.  The hot shower again saved the day before some card games and a mid day snack of chips and cookies we had bought on the walk.  Gabby still wasn't feeling the best, so we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in bed relaxing.

Snowed Inn - 01/18/2013

This is not set for black and white

Winter Wonderland

GABBY - We woke up to a winter wonderland outside.  There was already a good 2 feet on the ground and the snow was still falling steadily and heavily.  We took pictures from our balcony of the scene before us.  In the pictures it looks like we set our cameras to the monochrome setting of black and white, but it was just the contrast of the white snow and the dark mountains, valleys and buildings.  Ben went downstairs to talk to the front desk, seeing as we were planning on moving to the Tiger Eye in Old Manali today.  Well, that certainly wasn’t going to happen.  We were legitimately and officially snowed-in in the Himalayas.  There were no buses, no cabs, and even no tuk-tuks that were braving the weather out there today, despite the crazy mentality of many Indian drivers.  Ben was informed by the dude at reception that the entire valley had lost power during the night.  The hotel did have a generator, but they said that they would only turn it on sometimes and for not that long.  They provided us with a space heater seeing as we would be in our room for the majority of the day and would get pretty cold.  We discovered that space heater had about a 12 inch heating radius, which was disappointing and pretty much ineffective.  Our day was spent playing cards, sipping on red wine, writing, and watching movies (when the generator provided us with electricity to charge it).  We took scalding hot showers, which felt nice but made me feel a bit queasy afterwards.  I laid down and took it easy for the rest of the night, not having much of an appetite for dinner.