Manali, Solang and Naggar
Manali given four days instead of the day and a half a circuit tour can spare it. Old Manali and the hot springs, the meadow at Solang, and the left bank down to Naggar, which was the capital of this valley for fourteen centuries.
- Manali
- Vashisht
- Solang
- Naggar
Good for — A first trip to Kullu, families, and anyone who would rather unpack once
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Manali is the busiest place in Himachal and most people who complain about it spent thirty hours there on a circuit tour, which is not enough time to find anything except the Mall Road. This trip gives it three nights in one hotel and uses them on the parts of the valley that the coaches cannot fit in.
The town is one afternoon. The meadow is one morning. What the extra time buys is the left bank.
The two banks of the Beas, and why it matters which one you are on
The valley between Kullu and Manali has a road down each side of the river, and they are not equivalent.
The right bank is the highway. It carries everything — trucks, buses, the whole of the traffic between Mandi and Manali — and it is four lanes in places and a jam in others. The left bank is a two-lane road through orchards and villages that crosses back at Patlikuhl, takes about twenty minutes longer, and is the reason anybody thinks this valley is beautiful.
We use the left bank on the last day because it goes past Naggar. If you have an extra afternoon, doing it in both directions is a better use of the time than almost anything else on the itinerary.
Naggar was the capital, and it looks like it
For roughly fourteen centuries before the seat moved to Sultanpur in 1660, the Kullu kingdom was run from Naggar. The castle at the middle of it was built around 1460 by Raja Sidh Singh, and it is the best surviving example of kath-kuni construction anywhere that a visitor can walk into.
Kath-kuni is alternating courses of dressed stone and long cedar beams, laid dry, with no mortar between them. The point is that the timber lets the wall flex; the 1905 earthquake flattened masonry buildings across Kangra and left the kath-kuni towers standing. Look at the corners, where the beams are notched into each other.
The castle is a hotel now, which sounds like a desecration and is in fact why the building is in one piece.
What Solang is, depending on the month
The honest description of Solang is that it is a large grass bowl at the head of the valley with a ropeway up one side, and that what happens on it changes completely four times a year.
In winter it is packed snow and everybody is there for it. In April and May the snow has gone from the meadow and there is a scramble higher up towards Dhundi to find some, which is where a lot of the disappointment comes from — the photograph that sold the trip was taken in February. In the monsoon it is green, empty and frequently in cloud. In September and October it is a wide open meadow with the Dhundi peaks at the head of it and almost nobody on it, and it is the best of the four.
The ropeway runs through all of them and is the one activity here we would put anybody on.
Where the day goes if you are not careful
Two warnings, both about traffic rather than about places.
Manali’s centre is one-way, narrow and full of pedestrians, and in season the crawl from the bus stand to the Hadimba turning can take forty minutes for two kilometres. We do the temple early for that reason and not for the light.
The Solang road bottlenecks at the same hour every day, because everybody staying in Manali leaves for it after breakfast. Going up at eight and coming back at one turns a frustrating day into a good one, and it is the single change we would insist on if you wanted to rearrange this itinerary.
Day by day
How the 4 days run
- Day 18 hrs, 240km
Dharamshala to Manali
Long, and the distance is misleading — the Dhauladhar has no crossing, so you go round the end of it by Mandi. We break it at Baijnath or at the Pandoh reservoir depending on how the road is running. Nothing planned on arrival.
- Day 2
The town, on foot
Hadimba in the deodars first thing, before the queue for the courtyard — the temple is 1553 and the trees around it are the reason to stand there. Then Manu temple in old Manali, the lanes above the bridge, and across to Vashisht for the hot springs and the stone tanks. The Nyingma monastery below the Mall in the afternoon.
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- Day 312km to Solang, 25km to the portal
Solang, and the mouth of the tunnel
Up the valley in the morning. Solang is a broad grass bowl in summer and a snow field in winter, and what is worth doing there depends entirely on which month you have come in — the ropeway runs in both. We carry on up to Dhundi and the south portal of the Atal Tunnel, which is where the road to Lahaul now starts, and turn round there.
- Day 423km to Naggar, then 7–8 hrs
Naggar, and home the long way
Out of Manali on the left bank rather than the highway. Naggar castle is a timber-and-stone building in the kath-kuni style, the Roerich estate is a twenty-minute climb above it, and the temples on the terrace behind are older than either. Then down the quiet side of the valley to Kullu and away.
The price
What is in it, and what is not
Included
- Private car and driver for all four days, fuel, tolls and parking
- Three nights in Manali, twin sharing, with breakfast
- Pickup and drop in Dharamshala, or at Bhuntar airport
- The driver's own food and accommodation
Not included
- Flights and trains
- Lunches and dinners
- The Solang ropeway, and any of the activities on the meadow
- Entry and camera tickets at the castle and the art gallery
We do not publish a rate card. The number depends on the season, how many of you there are and the sort of hotels you want, so we price each trip on its own — and whatever we quote is what you pay.
Questions
What people ask about this one
Will there be snow at Solang?
December to March there is usually something, and January and February are the months to plan around if snow is the point of the trip. In May and June there is often nothing at Solang itself and the operators run people further up towards Dhundi to find it. We tell you what is actually there in the week you are travelling rather than what the brochures say.
Is four days too long for Manali?
Not if you use the left bank. Two days does the town and the meadow, which is what a circuit tour gives it, and it is the reason so many people come back saying Manali was crowded — they saw only the two crowded things in it. Naggar, the old road, the villages above Jagatsukh and the walk up to the Jogini falls are the other half and none of them has a queue.
Can we go through to Lahaul?
As a long day, yes — the tunnel puts Sissu about ninety minutes from Manali and we can swap it for the Naggar day if you would rather. It is a good day out and it is not the same as going to Lahaul, which needs a night on the far side to mean anything. If that is what you are after, say so and we will build the five-day version instead.
What is actually at the Roerich estate?
The house Nicholas Roerich lived and worked in from the 1920s until he died in 1947, with a gallery of his Himalayan paintings, an inhabited-feeling study, and a garden with a very good view down the valley. It takes an hour. It is also the least Indian-feeling building in Kullu and people either love it or wonder why they climbed the hill.
Is Bhuntar a sensible airport?
It is 50km away and it is the closest, and it cancels. The runway is short, the approach is up a valley, and a cloudy morning stops flights routinely through the monsoon and in winter. We are happy to meet you there and we would not put a same-day international connection on the other end of it.
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