I love it here in Manali!

We're nicely settled into our room in the comfy Asha Cottages guest house from Bri's past, enjoying a really mellow pace of reading, eating, plentiful naps and shopping. We're both in perfect health once again.

This morning I got up early and went to a tiny yoga and ayurveda center for a private yoga class with a young swami. While we were scheduled for an hour together, I emerged in a lovely bubble of contentment 2.5 hours later. Swami Vishant was initially a little imposing, very serious, but as we became more comfortable with one another his subtle humour surfaced, and we had a great connection and I learned a lot. His asana practice was very inspiring. Some valuable corrections to certain technical issues, some excellent feedback. We had tentative plans to go for a run together (of all things) in the early evening that I opted out of, but I will return to see him tommorow morning again.

I suppose it's a little odd that I've said scarcely a word about the food, so I should. There is so much to eat that it's a wonder that I do anything else.

What's in season? Around here bananas and litchis are especially good, but there is a lot of great fruit available right now. Mangos of course, watermelon, fabulous peaches, little red plums, apricots, cherries. The tomatoes are mostly of a plum variety, and not great. The cucumbers are excellent and seem to be mainly of three varieties.

While we were on our trek the food was very repetitive, and while I love dal, chapatis, rice and simple vegetable curries "subji", it gets pretty dull when you eat it twice a day for two weeks. As the tiny villages in the hills have little variety beyond what is carried in or grown, we experienced the reality of a diet with little variation. We had packed in oatmeal so our breakfasts were eagerly anticipated breaks from dal and rice. Oatmeal liberally studded with almonds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts and dried fruit provided necessary fuel to start the days walks.

In urban restaurants my favorite breakfast is the paratha. A buttery flatbread fried on a flat iron griddle, available plain or stuffed. I especially like them stuffed with potato or paneer. They are often served with hot lime pickle and "curd", house fermented yogurt that is quite liquid in consistency and tangier than western yogurt. It's excellent.

Here in Manali we've been many times to the Lakshmi Dhaba because Brian remembered it fondly from his previous visit. They make an especially memorable butter chicken. Butter chicken is generally way lighter on the cream here than in Canadian Indian restaurants.

Our lunches are frequently the lovely lacy masala dosas of South India. Enormous paper thin crepes with a masala potato filling, served with a fairly liquid vegetable soup/sauce called sambar, and usually a mild coconut chutney. Today I chose a coconut dosa, instead of a potato filling it had grated fresh coconut inside.

The street food of India is incredible varied and mostly deep fried and potato based. If we could get this stuff on a sidewalk in Montreal for post-drinking snacks it just might give the beloved Quebecois poutine a run for its money. Tasty stuff.

In Haridwar I tried a lovely nightcap of warm milk, sold in an especially appetizing presentation. At night sweet shops set up enormous cast-iron cauldrons, shallow and several feet across, with a propane flame underneath. The milk is kept hot just under a simmer, stirred constantly with a giant wooden paddle. Some have cinnamon, others have pistachio shavings floating on top. There are often benches outside and customers sit and sip their milk from single-use terracotta ceramic cups, tossing them on the sidewalk when they're finished.

I'm dismayed to see the grip that Nestle, Kraft, Frito-Lay, Pepsi and Coke have on India. Despite the excellent coffee grown in South India most places are serving instant Nescafe.