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Manali in the Beas River valley is an important hill station in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh India near the northern end of the Kullu Valley. Manali is administratively a part of the Kullu district with population of approx. 30000. The small town was the beginning of an ancient trade route toLadakh and from there over the Karakoram Pass on to Yarkand and Khotan in the Tarim Basin. A popular tourist destination at 570km from New Delhi and 280km from Shimla. According to Hindu legend it was named after the sage Manu after he steered a boat of survivors to safety here during a great flood. In present times the town was first discovered by the hippies of the 70s and 80s. Later in the 90s domestic tourism to Manali got a fillip owing to insurgency inKashmir. It caught the publics imagination and was soon a legitimate boomtown eventually growing far beyond its original village size. Today much of the main town centre which is based around its bus terminal is a hotchpotch of thoughtless construction an overcrowded bazaar and copious amounts of litter much like any other popular destination.
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