I was amused, in Slumdog Millionaire, to see the boys in the kitchen refilling Aquafina bottles from the tap and then reattaching the caps with superglue, ready to serve to the next tourist!
You can only get to the lower part of Himachal Pradesh by air…Bhuntar is closest to Manali where I’m headed. In October the roads should be fine as far as Manali(except for rain, which can be anytime of year) because it’s not very high until you get significantly north of Manali.
I am going to try and take the Manali to Leh road, which is significantly dicier and has four passes in the 15-17,000+ feet range. Baralacha La is my biggest concern that time of year because of weather. Leh is, of course, quite a ways north of Manali.
There is another airport near Shimla and another near Dharamsala. However either car or train from Delhi is just fine too (the trains won’t get you too far but there are a couple of narrow gauge ones from Pathankot in the West and Kalka, as I recall…)
You can figure it out on the ground if you like.
If I do manage the 500 Km trip to Leh by road, I’m gonna take Kingfisher air back from Leh to Delhi. Not gonna tempt fate twice.