28th June 2008 ~ Chandigarh - Manali - Solang Nala
I woke up with my mobile alarm tearing the silence of early morning at 4.45am and started getting ready. Packed our stuff on the carrier and some in the boot and took the first picture of all of us in the parking lot with the Bolero.
And then we set forth to live the great Himalayan dream… My head was ringing with words to the effect of - Mountains calling.... Here I come. We stopped at one of the roadside dhabas for breakfast and had parathas. Dark clouds had gathered in the sky and even before we finished breakfast, it started pouring and it added to my happiness. We drove towards Manali which was the target for the day. It was drizzling and with Mirza Galib playing in the background there was nothing more one could ask for.
It was hard to imagine that I had met all of them just the day before and here I was discussing photography with Pradeep. We took our first photography break around 11.30 am. It was still drizzling and we started shooting under rain coats & umbrellas :) then we were back on the road.
One can see these three structures in the middle of photograph below just to give an idea of scale.... :)
And we hopped back in the car....
and finally stopped at one of the roadside dhaba and treated our famished tummies to some yummy lunch. It was hard, not to stop in between for more photography... :)
I even tried my hand at some model photography :D
As we drove on at Raison, we took long break as the sky was amazing in the golden hour. The brilliance that the sky had turned that evening reminded me of these line by Gandhiji and I quote “When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator."
While passing through town stopped cos of jam and captured...
And here is the reason for the jam....
Our drive to Manali faced a small roadblock with sheep returning home after the day’s grazing and I took this opportunity to run behind them and click a few shots which turned out to be the one of my favorite one of the day.
We reached Manali around 8PM and decided to stop there for dinner and then drove to Solang Nala. It was still raining so we decided to take turns to keep an eye on the luggage instead of unpacking it from the carrier. It was already past twelve and we were thinking of leaving early to avoid Rohtang-bound traffic. We suggested that Pradeep should catch up on sleep as he was driving all day and Rahul said he needed to sleep as well so I offered to keep watch first and sleep later. I made myself comfortable and looked through the day's work and sifting through the photos and formatting the card for the next day. Finally, I woke up Nitin and slept around 3-3:30AM
I woke up with my mobile alarm tearing the silence of early morning at 4.45am and started getting ready. Packed our stuff on the carrier and some in the boot and took the first picture of all of us in the parking lot with the Bolero.
And then we set forth to live the great Himalayan dream… My head was ringing with words to the effect of - Mountains calling.... Here I come. We stopped at one of the roadside dhabas for breakfast and had parathas. Dark clouds had gathered in the sky and even before we finished breakfast, it started pouring and it added to my happiness. We drove towards Manali which was the target for the day. It was drizzling and with Mirza Galib playing in the background there was nothing more one could ask for.
We took several breaks for photography. There was this amazing site we saw on the way and stopped..
And we hopped back in the car....
and finally stopped at one of the roadside dhaba and treated our famished tummies to some yummy lunch. It was hard, not to stop in between for more photography... :)
I even tried my hand at some model photography :D
While passing through town stopped cos of jam and captured...
And here is the reason for the jam....
Our drive to Manali faced a small roadblock with sheep returning home after the day’s grazing and I took this opportunity to run behind them and click a few shots which turned out to be the one of my favorite one of the day.
We reached Manali around 8PM and decided to stop there for dinner and then drove to Solang Nala. It was still raining so we decided to take turns to keep an eye on the luggage instead of unpacking it from the carrier. It was already past twelve and we were thinking of leaving early to avoid Rohtang-bound traffic. We suggested that Pradeep should catch up on sleep as he was driving all day and Rahul said he needed to sleep as well so I offered to keep watch first and sleep later. I made myself comfortable and looked through the day's work and sifting through the photos and formatting the card for the next day. Finally, I woke up Nitin and slept around 3-3:30AM
You have shared good images and experience of Manali trip. Manali is no doubt good place to visit and enjoy the vacation. One should go there once in lifetime.
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