Smile and Wave !!

10 days of planning finally culminated into one of the best and most hectic 48 hours I have had so far. I had a long weekend coming up, Saturday and Sunday. It seemed a good opportunity to make a short trip to manali, kullu, see the sights and come back.... That was the plan. But as usual, Life, the universe and everything else played their usual roles by making the plan unsure upto the very last moment. At first there was this chance that I would be out in the field on friday, requiring my brother to travel by bus to join me at some point. then came the weird demand from my boss that we move into the field on saturday, a holiday.  Thankfully, the storm did not come to pass, and I got my weekend off. So off we went with a backpack of clothes, armed with a Olympus camera and looking forward to some quality time together.  Being the tourist season, we had had the foresight to book 2 seats on a semi-deluxe overnight bus to manali about 1 week in advance. The govt. bus it turned out was

Outskirts of Hamirpur, HP. Thanks to the clouds and haze it was tolerable. Dam site at Pandoh, 20 kms from Mandi (towards kullu) Another view of the reservoir at Pandoh From a cable bridge at a place called Hanog, 27 kms from Mandi (towards Kullu) The cable bridge at Hanog Chilling out!   Uber cool Man! uber cool

No post since Feb 1. what a pity. But I must say, that Feb, March and April 2010 have been singularly busy and chaotic. I have no idea how the days have gone by. And yet, here I am staring May in the face and wondering whether time is also relative. Still in Shimla, enjoying the weather. Although it did get warm, (warm mind you, not hot as it gets down south) during March and April, so much so that I was speculating about temperatures in May touching almost 34-35 deg Centigrade here in Shimla. Now that May has finally dawned, much to my surprise, the temperatures are cooler and the days more comfortable than the previous month. At least that is the case for now. The reason being light showers every other day interspersed with the sun peeking out for a few brief moments. As a result, the wind has gotten a bit chilly, and there is the constant rumbling of the gods anger to back it up. Talking of backup - there goes the power supply just as I write this. Today is an exceptionally rain