It’s time for Day 2, Day 1 was overall nice and we had a nice dinner and sleep. I used to sleep at 1-2 AM every night but in Manali it changed and I slept like a baby at 11:30 PM.
We woke up the next day, had a nice, yummy, and full breakfast, and headed towards the taxi stand on mall road.
We were trying to look for a taxi or auto and suddenly one old aged uncle(probably 60+) approached us and offered us 3 hours booking in 1200 rupee and a visit of 5-6 places in close proximity of our hotel.
Remembering our previous experience, I told the old uncle about how people are always in hurry and do not care about tourist satisfaction at all, and uncle told us he is a Rajpoot and he promised us a better experience for not 3 but 5 hours.
Finally, we agreed and we started our journey in uncle’s Alto at around 12 PM.
One recommendation – For internal sightseeing in Manali always prefer local taxis/cabs, never try to drive on those 45° slopes all on your own.
Hidimba Temple
First, we visited Hidimba Temple, which was around 4-5 KMs from our hotel. Hidimba temple is a big place, where the temple is built only in 10% of the area, rest all is occupied by Photographers, Vendors, Games, Yalk ride, Trees and etc. Seemed to me more like a tourist place rather than a temple. Anyways, we got into the queue for Darshan and we were barefooted (temple ritual you know) after around 10 minutes we got to see Hidimba Devi and everyone was allowed to spend less than a minute actually and no cameras were allowed, hence it was very quick Darshan. After that, we came out and bought a selfie stick for 150 INR for our next adventure “lots of lots of pictures”.
We spent around 2 hours in the Hidimba temple clicking photos and eating Panipuri. No one was there to disturb us as such although it was full of other people.
If you missed reading on Day-1, you can enjoy it here – Trip To Manali – Solang Valley Snowy Himachal Day-1
After that just on the other side of the Hidimba temple, there was a small temple for Ghatotkach (Ghatotkach Tree Temple)
and Museum of Himachal Culture & Folk Art.
We visited there as well and spent some 5-10 minutes and then we called our cab uncle and he was there in 2-3 minutes.
After that we visited a Shiv temple that was 2-3 km from Hidimba temple, I don’t remember the exact name of the temple and I didn’t even bother to google it because anyways it was closed and empty, nobody was there, we just entered, clicked a few photographs and exited.
Could be a better place for loners and heartbroken people 😅.
Moving on, we reached “The Club House” which was supposedly famous for games, sports, recreational activities, and shopping spots for just 25 INR per person entry fee. Not sure about the game’s fee. It was full of people as it had many shops for clothes, jackets, eateries and games rooms like TT, Karom, etc. We couldn’t enjoy it much because TT was fully occupied and people were not leaving that room, Karom was available but you know Karom is too normal. After 30-40 minutes we exited The Club House.
And yes on the way to The Club House there was a nice river flowing through and we clicked many photographs on our way. That was the nicest part of Club House.😀
After The Club House, we headed for “The Vashishth Temple” which is famous for Hot Springs. It was again 3-4 Kms away from the Club House.
Vashishth temple was big as compared to the Hidimba temple(in terms of a temple built-up area). We had to submit our shoes(5 INR per shoe pair) before entering the temple and after that, we started Darshan and clicked some photographs too. It was a moderately crowded place. The most interesting thing here was Hot Springs. There was a separate bathroom for ladies and a Small swimming pool cum shower area for Gents. There was an option of Tap water connection from the hot springs so that people like us can also feel the water and honestly it was too hot, burning water 🔥. We couldn’t dare to jump into the swimming pool. Although I think pool water was mixed and was not that hot. We spent around an hour there and left at around 4:30 PM from that temple. After that, we started shopping around as there were too many Jackets, Shawls, Souvenirs, etc.
At around 6 we finally got free and enjoyed some sweetcorn on our way back to the hotel.
All this time Cab’s uncle was really patient with us and we really appreciated that. Cab uncle again changed our perception back to positive for Himachali people.
At around 6:30 PM we reached Van Vihar & Tibetan Monastery which was very close to our hotel, but we were too tired to visit them, and also it was too dark for any kind of fun. So we decided to visit these places the next day and we called off our day and thanked Cab’s uncle.
Cab uncle dropped us at our hotel and we enjoyed some tea and snacks after a long enjoyable journey.
Thank you for reading, see you again on the final day, Day 3.
