Hotels 1: Manali

I've never understood the fascination that some people have for hotels, and how much they are willing to spend on a bed to sleep in for the night. Really, isn't one Quality Inn just like any other? Of course, people like me stay at Quality Inns. Unless we're backpacking around the world in which case we stay where the Lonely Planet guidebook recommends.

Along the way, we've had some winners (Elif Star in Turkey and the Windsor Hotel in Cairo come to mind), and some losers (Safwan Hotel in Lattakia, Syria, where entering the bathroom was enough to make me gag).

In Manali, the Lonely Planet recommendation was the Sunshine Guest House. An old British Raj house, it was full of character. Jerome lit a fire in our room for the evening, and by day we sat on the veranda, admiring the view down the Kullu Valley while drinking gin and tonics. All this for only $8 a night!

The Sunshine Guest House from the gardens:



Relaxing on the veranda, British style.


The view, with some snow capped peaks in the distance.


However, we have a pretty consistent record of rarely achieving clean sheets, 24-hour hot water, and natural sunlight in the same hotel room. In this case, the sheets and pillows also appeared to be left over from the Raj era. Thank goodness for those sleeping sacks!