Solang Valley

May 11th, 2011

Manu offered to take me to the Solang Valley this afternoon which is about 14 kilometres northwest from Manali. It’s a ski hill in the winter and in the summer offers paragliding, zorbing (the big blow up balls you get inside and roll down a hill), horseback riding, ATVing and other outdoor activities.

Before leaving, I spotted another crazy cricket pitch down below...see the guy bowling just left off of centre? He's throwing to a guy straight ahead of him but covered by the trees. The dark patch to the left of him drops down a level...too funny. These guys actually caught me taking this picture and after some friendly waves, they wanted me to come down and join them...but I didn't, figured it wasn't a good sport for my back right now....but nevertheless: Top Bowling!

The visibility was incredibly clear so the views of the mountains on the drive there were so stunning that we stopped to some pics along the way and even Manu, who grew up here, was taking some.

Looking past Vashisht:

My chauffeur Manu:

Manali Peak in the background...and my pose makes it look like I'm claiming this land as my own!

Manu and his cute little red ride (cheapest car in the world!):

The Solang Valley Ski Centre:

Zorber:

Ab-Zorbing Action:


Manu and I went for a short walk up the hill and sat down to soak in the views. On our descent we ran into Ram, a tandem pilot I had met in Goa. He reintroduced me to Ajay, a pilot that I met when I was in Nepal four years ago. Ajay is a world class pilot who has previously won the Indian and Nepalese national championships. After a brief talk with Ajay, there’s a good chance that I may end up going for a tandem flight with him from a different, higher mountain. I’ve seen this guy fly and totally trust him plus I think he could teach me about tandem and mountain thermal flying. Nice to see him again.

Okay, this was interesting. They would hook up a kid in a harness. Two guys run forward while holding on to a rope. Another guy would run behind with a small rope in each hand which were connected to the brakes of the wing so essentially he was the pilot...crazy! (but it worked) The kid is tough to spot but he's just below the centre of the picture, just above the two guys pulling him on the ground:

A paraglider coming in to land:

Looking back down:

On the little hike up:

Checking out the mountains:

We were back at the cute red Tata and the road effectively terminates where we parked earlier but soon that will all change. There is a huge construction project going on to drill a 9 kilometre tunnel, called the Rohtang Tunnel, which will cut travel time to the area of Ladakh to the north immensely plus allow nearly year round access. Currently, the Rohtang Pass is only open for around three months of the year and it is of strategic importance to the Indian military to have better access to the area. Unfortunately the budget has more than tripled, from $108,000,000 to $370,000,000!. Work started in 2002, thinking to be done by 2009 and it is now slated for completion in 2014. I hope some heads have rolled in the meantime...

The new tunnel road. Check out the curvy road in the bottom and then the soon to be straight one at the top...what a difference that will make:

We drove back to Manali and headed to the markets as Manu needed to pick up some food and other items for the new restaurant they just opened, Little Italy, which is a few hundred meters from Purnima on the main road.

It was nice to get out of town and check out some new areas... Dhanyabad Manu! (Thanks Manu!)