Chelsea Hotel Manali

... and sleep some hours. When I was awake I took the biggest bowl of muesli I had ever eaten filled with fresh fruit, nuts, yoghurt, honey (mmmm!) and went to explore McCleod Ganj. It is quite famous here because the Dalai Lama gives teachings here every now and then. He will be here also on the 15th of October to teach, but I will be gone again then unfortunately. I went to the temple complex where he performs his teachings and found monks discussing ...

... number of tourists that have "disappeared" over the years:

http://www.khaleejtimes.c om/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcon tinent/2005/August/subcontinent_August4 93.xml&section=subcontinent&col =

Anyway, I met my guide "Billy" at 9:30 am. We started uphill from Old Manali and just kept going up and up. Manali already sits at about 8600 ft so this was ...

... quite a lot you know, it is 300 rupees until she tells me she cannot help, because I have not paid for phone banking! Finally, I get them, they unlock so I can get out 3000 rupees, and I go and I get a cup of coffee and a cigarette and this dog, it sees me, and comes over for a rub and only then do I feel okay, until then I am like this girl in the movie. I'm going to get a big bag of diamonds. No more cards. It will be heavy, but ...

... though the gears and brakes are on the opposite sides to most motorbikes. In fact Ben fell in love so much with the bike he promised that one day heŽd return with his Dad to by one, drive round a bit of India then ship it home. So if your reading this Willy get yourself ready for a road tour! The other days we spent eating some of the most delicious curries weŽd ever had, hiking in the surrounding mountains and...did we mention eating delicious curries?

... dusty, and generally miserable. The hardship of the workers who built the American railroads are well documented. However, those guys had nothing on the Indian laborers we passed working on the Manali to Leh highway. Cooking asphalt on a fire in a desert at 1600 feet is not a job I would want to do. We crossed the Baralacha pass (16,500 ft) and the Telang pass (17600 ...

... only other student is an English girl so it's almost a private class. It's funny. I love being here but I don't mind that I'm going home in less than two weeks. I usually hate the thought of coming home, but that probably had something to do with what I was coming home to. How weird is it that I'm actually looking forward to delivering mail again? Besides, I will be coming home as a certified reiki healer so that's something new, and it might even be an ...

... a bit in the short year and a half since I left here, there are a couple of huge new hotels along the strip near the clubhouse, but business in the family-owned places has still been good in the past year. Mata-ji asked if I was hungry, and I had to admit that I was famished. As mentioned in the previous entry, there are reasons that one is hungry when getting off the all-night sleeper bus. Bringing up a pile of home-cooked chapatti/roti and a bowl of delicious dal ...

... other parts the road were a very bumpy potholed dirt track where the average speed was about 10km...and the chances of damaging your back or other body parts were farely high! At one point half way through the first day we were crossing a desert, a sandy path, at the bottom of a valley, not a soul in sight - we just hoped we didn't break down here..... The first day consisted of several much needed breaks ...

... guma pocila, sofer si pa tako ali tako vzame za svojo malico uro casa... Amritsar, mesto tisocerih turbanov,sikhovsko versko sredisce, nas je sprejelo s svojo kaoticnostjo, na katero smo ze malce pozabili glede na to, da smo zdaj kar nekaj casa preziveli v mirnejsih, poduhovljenih krajih Indije. Amristar, milijonsko mesto v Pandzabu,znano po Golden templu, iz tega razloga smo se tudi odlocili, da si ga pogledamo. Ocarani od lepote, ko ga je obsevalo zahajajoce sonce in mu ...

... there is a time in a monk's life and studies when he is allowed to make a choice and go out into the world for a time. Perhaps many of these younger monks, being so influenced by the pull and desires of the western competetive world will drop out. In a way it is sort of unsettling to see a traditionally dressed monk as such, who is supposed to be learning to renounce the desires of the earthly plane, talking on a cell phone, chewing Guthka (betel nut), and ...