DAY 27 - MANALI

We decided to spend the morning visiting Manali's most famous site, the Hadimba Temple, so made our way to an opening in the forest where it was situated. One of the first things we noticed were the number of local women charging money for a picture with one of the many huge, dopey white rabbits that they carried round with them (a bizarre but very common practice in Manali). The temple itself was in keeping with the traditional feel of the town, with intricate wooden carvings and a four-tiered pagoda style roof. After entering past a row of animal skulls, I was hit by the eerie atmosphere within, quite unlike any other temple I had seen before, smoke and incense rising from a small covering below where people were donating small packets of rice to a holy woman. The interior was made entirely of stone, housing the centrepiece of the temple - the supposed footprint of the goddess Hadimba. We spent an hour or so afterwards sitting in a nearby park catching the thin shards of light which flooded through the tall trees above, listening to music on our speaker and relaxing as the morning broke into afternoon. We noticed an entourage of film makers below but could not decipher exactly what it was that they were producing. We then had lunch with our friends back at the hostel (the meal cooked by them), before spending a while in the club house enjoying our newly founded routine of afternoon pool. The rest of the day was spent in the usual fashion - venturing out for small walks, relaxing, chatting, eating, drinking and listening to music, until we eventually decided to get some sleep ahead of our journey to Dharamsala the next day.