Hotel Asia Sulphur Spring Manali

23/10
filled up my bucket at the hot springs, just in front of the baths. had the best shower of my life i swear, and my comfort level rose dramatically after that awful bus ride.

then I had a Mexican breakfast of spicy beans, fried eggs, chips, and cheesy toast.(only way
to describe it). Delicious.. but that was a treat. too expensive...

24/10
so I'm living more frugally now you might say, trying ...

... appear.

It was quite late at night, The Ladakh Festival is starting and His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama had just left town so there were many tourists around. We allowed a hotel tout to guide us to a budget guesthouse in Upper Karzoo which turned out to be a good deal. Sometimes the bus touts come in handy, they know where to find the rooms when nothing else is available.


We are safely up in the mountains and the Ladakh adventure begins.

... were accompanied by some dog for every portion of the trek. Most of them would follow us for a bit and break away after a couple kilometers, but we came upon one persistant and amazing hound who actually stuck with us for 3/4ths of the 22km hike. Having him was seriously inspiring-- he became a real member of our party and made it all the way to the glacier with us. Making it to this glacier was by far one of our best experiences yet-- the walk was one of the most exhausting ...

... t fathom taking anything off. On day 3 our lovely companions had to go back to Mumbai and we left the following morning. Manali was nice, the mountains were lovely but I think I've spent enough time in the Himalayas and it's time to get down and dirty (literally) in the real India. p.s - After spending so much time with Kad, I picked up the famous Indian head bob/nod thingy. I do it naturally now and it's driving me mad!

... on Thursday. Friday morning when we woke up from the little sleep that we could get on the extremely uncomfortable bus, we were driving through beautiful mountains. It was gorgeous, and I spent the whole morning drive, about 3 hours, with my head out the window, taking pictures and marveling at the extraordinary views. Before I left for India I didn't think that this would be a trip where I could experience beautiful wilderness, but so far the ...

... and I'm not sure how much I'd really get out of it. Obviously it would be a great experience, but there are also many great teachers in the US. Richard Freeman is right in Boulder, so if I just want to improve my practice, I can always study with him. I'm wondering how much of it is ego- to be able to say that I've studied with so-and-so. And, until then, I'm not really sure what to do. I have no desire in ...

... not at least quite so much, so there is more excitement to fire up my single-cylinder machine and go down the road to see what is there. A large part of the journey this time will be on roads I have not traveled, but is that not the way, to go down roads one has not been on before? In travel and in life this concept is extremely important. In Delhi, I'll toss back a few with the Bullet Wallas, guitar in hand and fully practiced with about a hundred crowd-pleasing ...

... so that should give you an idea of just how bad these roads are. This time we got to go over four passes which made our first three look like kindergarten. The first one was Taglang La (17,580ft) which I already talked about. I'm glad we did it and I'm glad it's over because it hurt. The second one was Lachlung La (16,600ft) which had the delightful feature of having a 800ft drop from the summit then straight back up 600ft. But, the road up to Lachlung ...

... of the non-carpeted bathroom. It feels weird just slopping water all over the bathroom - there is no shower cubicle or shower curtains!) Then breakfast which is usually pretty good, yesterday we had porridgey type thing and otherwise it's toast and cereal so nice and normal and un-spicey. I always eat loads of breakfast so I don't have to eat much indian food later. 9am - 10am is usually spent preparing lessons or doing ...

... about. Time past slowly, we passed through Chandigarh and finally after midday arrived at Kalka. Changed to the connecting toy train (Himlayan Queen) - a narrow gauge affair, slightly cramped and we set off - slowly winding upwards through the outskirts of the town. A loud southern county english girl and her mexican boyfriend chatted to me - she was rather irritating in that loud, inquisitive public school way, she seemed to take offence that after telling me that ...