An early start and a days solitude, coffee in the balcony watching the surrounding peaks take shape. 
Sion enough the path's lost by a waterfall forcing a loop back through the village and up through the never-ending shops and stalls which line the riverside, the continuation of the road from Kullu, repetition and familiarity. 
But there's a sweet shop offering bread pakora for brunch at the normal price and, eventually, a bridge crossing the river. On through stationary traffic and, at the first opportunity, off-road and into the village quiet, paths too narrow for the 35mm as they snake around slopes until depositing me on the road. 
A path up through the orchards finds Old Manali unrecognisable, half built hostels towering up, shells of concrete filling spaces once, not so long ago, populated by apple trees. But time moves on, economics and demographics changing the flow of these places where, words once written, frame a moment already lost.
Descending through the deodar wood, laughter now challenging the familiar unseeing glares of the caravan, the path continuing above the river now topped with guest houses in various stages of construction.
A seat upon a rock, looking upstream, wondering what the view will be like in another five years. 
An hour in Manali, changes here also, an unexpected vibrancy, a note to return for another look before walking the road back up to Vashisht with a head full of thoughts to be churned over.