Mandi

Mandi (sounds like Bundy) is a nice little town. I don't recall exactly, but I think the hotel we stayed in was an old holiday house for british colonail people...or it could have been more of a retirement home. It's hard to keep track...the days really blend into each other. In any case, it was a really nice spot with a quiet and peacfull courtyard. The service and food were great, but the beer was really terrible...I think they had an old stock of a bad beer to begin with.

Mandi is a stocking point for the fruit merchants around the area. The bring the fruit in from the different farms, stock them, and redistribute them to other areas. They're also famouse for making preserves and jams. I didn't have any fruit or jam there...did't really run across anything interesting.

We walked around town and checked out a couple of temples. There is a neat little cloth market where you can buy material and then take it to a tailor to have something made. The prices were pretty decent from what I heard...I'm not that big of a shopper so I didn't really look closely.

Some of us started wandering around the other areas around town. A nice man stopped us and gave us an impromptu tour of some of the older and unique hindu temples in the town. He figured that he'd feel good about showing some tourists around and also build up his karma by showing the temples to people...really nice guy, unfortunately, I couldn't understand a word he said. But Reena speaks a little hindi and she was able to translate for us.

The next day, we headed into Dharamsala.