Reaching Shangarh from Manali via Public transport (HRTC)

There is no direct bus from Manali to Shangarh. You’ll have to go through Sainj to get to Shangarh.

To get to Sainj from Manali, you’ll have to take a bus from Manali bus depot to Aut. Buses to Aut will be relatively frequent from Manali and it will take around 2.5-3 hours to reach Aut. From Aut, you can get a bus to Sainj which will take you about an hour to reach there. While changing buses at Aut, do not expect a bus immediately departing from Sainj, waiting up to 30-45 minutes for the bus to Sainj is normal.

Once you reach Sainj, you have 3 options:

1. The easiest one will be to take a cab to shangarh from Sainj taxi union. The price for 1 small cab (Alto) as of March 2023 was 800 Rupees. It will take you about 45 minutes to reach Shangarh.
   
2. Second option will be to take the daily bus departing to Shangarh from Sainj. This is the only bus that goes up to Shangarh. But whether this bus runs or not highly depends upon the weather. When I was in Shangarh, the bus did not run for the entirety of my stay because of incessant rain.
   
3. Take the bus leaving to Neuli from Sainj and depart at Ropa. Tell the bus conductor you want to go to Shangarh and they’ll drop you off at the road-head for Shangarh. Its a 7-8 km uphill walk from there to Shangarh. If you’re lucky you’ll come across some locals going to Shangarh in their mini trucks, they’ll be happy to give you a lift up-to Shangarh if there’s space. Make sure to pay them with a small gratuity for their help
   

Do plan all of your travel to be completed before sunset as the roads will be almost deserted after that.