A day trip to Solang

Solang Valley is about 15 miles uphill from Vashisht. It is a ski-ing resort for most of the year although, at the moment, there isn't much snow around. A few weeks ago it was a lovely sunny day as the monsoon rains had finished here we headed out on the bike to Solang. This is the road that takes you to Solang although, I must say, this is a very good part of the road. Mostly the road surface was broken up and was quite treacherous in places, especially where landslides had occured when rocks came crashing down from the mountain and had broken up the road. It is the main road north to  Ladakh , Spiti Valley etc so it is very busy with trucks, cars and tourist buses.

The entrance to the gondola to take you up to the slopes.

Although there was not much snow at that time and the ski-resort was not open to skiers, the slopes are still in use. Para-gliding is very popular. None of us were the least bit tempted to go para-gliding in India, not even with an instructor at the back of you and especially after seeing people coming into land right on their backside - broken coccyx sprung to mind.

Some para-gliders were soaring really high. These two guys para-gliding were just small dots in the sky - we had to use the zoom lens on the camera to see them. So, they were actually much higher than they appear in the photo.

Coming into land.

If we did have any notion of going para-gliding this would certainly have put us off. The piece of colour in the tree is a para-gliding rig - obviously the one that never made it! You would have thought that someone would have removed it as surely it can't be good for business. That's India for you.

You can also go Zorbing . Once again not the least bit tempted, especially as they look quite deflated as if they must have holes in them.

Horse riding, either bareback or with a saddle.

Things for the kids to do, getting bounced up and down on a big elastic rope.

A fun-fare. A bit different from what we have in Scotland. When kids get in the wee cars a man holds onto the blue frame, walks round in a circle and pulls the cars round manually. Who needs electricity to operate a fun-fare.

We finished the day with going to a wee Dhaba and having some good grub - dhal and rice for Colin and a big omelette sandwich for me.