Hotel Manali Castle

Staying in Vashisht was nice for the first few days then it was good to leave because it was too touristy and too many pot smokers. Visited a really beautiful waterfall there and went to the hot springs. The guesthouse was nice and it's a good centre for outdoor sports. I did paragliding, bouldering, a 3 day trek in Beas Kund and had good coffee and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies at the Dylans cafe. Also a cool experience was taking part in a jam session at the World peace cafe.

... put up pictures in a reasonable time. We're especially excited about putting up the pictures for McLeod because everything here is just so damn beautiful.

At the time of this writing, Bonnaroo is officially over and we're incredibly jealous of everyone who got to wake up and roll out of a tent in Manchester this morning. Please send us emails or facebook/myspace us and tell us everything so we don't feel like we missed out so much. We hope everyone is doing well and you'll hear more from us very soon!

... We made it safely and this time the ride was closer to 12 or 14 hours, more like it was supposed to be. In other news, I'm going to be very busy the rest of my time in India, and I don't know how many more travel blogs I will write. Hopefully I'll at least get a couple more in, and if nothing else, I will try to get up my picture (I know I've been saying this for a long time) and will write once I return home. I hope this blog finds everyone healthy and happy.

Im sure I would of made it last night, but am glad I stopped. I had a nice lay in waiting for the rain to stop, some breakfast and a quick wonder around town whilst the sun dried to roads and then I was off. The road was great, running along a river some of the way with some nice sweeping long bends cutting through the valley with roads hanging onto the mountainside. It was like a race track and a ...

... journeyed on a 12 hour busride that turned into 16 hours, as we got in an accident (of course). I knew something bad was going to happen, I just had a feeling. Indian drivers are crazy in general, however our driver was even more erratic than usual, and halfway through our journey our bus ended up crossing the median and landing in oncoming traffic. The details I am not sure of, whether we hit someone or were ...

Twelve days. Twelve whole days. That's the length of time for which I ended up staying in Leh. I'm pretty sure I haven't stayed anywhere else for quite that long at one go. Not even Kathmandu. And it would have been thirteen days, were it not for a strong lobby from the one-man French contingent in the multinational assembly of Leh-escapees to leave a day earlier than the vague consensus of the rest of the group was leaning towards. We opted to take the scenic route from Leh to Manali ...

... some go to private school because they are very well-kempt and very well spoken. Yesterday I taught them the pirate song ('I jumped aboard a pirate ship and the captain said to me we're going this way that way forwards and backwards'....etc etc) which went down well and they loved the rum part especially. After this it is often yoga or more washing (again, using a bucket so quite time consuming) or lesson planning or ...

... and more food! Eventually, and I say eventually we pulled into Shimla - it was around 19.30hrs. I got off - it was cool, for the first time in I don't know how many weeks I wasn't sweating - WHAT A BLESSED RELIEF!!! Infact it was quite chilly. Some porter/tout walked with me - giving me directions to his hotel (which was my choice anyway) - cars/rickshaws are not allowed in Shimla proper and it was a thirty minute tab - up quite steep slopes at 7,000ft. I was ...