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| Naggar Naggar, 25 km south of Manali is a small village. The main attraction is the former house of the russian painter and philosopher family Roerich. At the moment the whole valley is occupied with harvesting apples. Susanne and Elias, 29th August 05  The idyllic valley |  apples...  Boxes of apples destined for Delhi. |
| The Manikaran Mistery The ancient holy place, which is both sacred to Hindus and Sikhs, is at the bottom of a deep gorge. It is famous for hot springs, which come from the stony soil. A German traveler told us of Saddhus, who prepare their meal there on the hot stones. It seemed to be worthwhile us going there. On the other hand I had read in a Geo Special magazine at home that at this place all trace of some western tourists had been lost. The travel guide made a point of telling us not to walk around alone. The speculations over mysterious disappearancess of, in the meantime ranging from 27 to 50 persons (depending upon the source), range from drug induced accidents, attacks of bears and wolves to the many maffia-like cannabis and opium farmers of the area. Also there is talk of secret cults high up in the mountains. In addition several posters of the missed ones were torn down around Manikaran and the registration pages from the hotel guest books were torn out. In Manali we discovered a poster with the photo of a young Australian. He has been missing since the beginning of this month. He left the hotel only with sandals and camera in Manikaran. One day before we planned to leave form Manikaran we did some research on the web... In the night Elias got high fever and strong diarrhoea. We decided to postpone the journey. Our bad feelings concerning this place had increased even more. At breakfast in our guest house we met a Kannadian living here for 20 years in an ashram. He told us that ten years back he was shot whilst drawing maps and unknowingly passing through a poppy field in this valley. We decided to avoid this place and changed our route on to Shimla. Susanne, 30th August 05 | Further links to this history: Yahoo India News Insight News TV |