Hotel Monaal Chail

... top, but with a little encouragement from mark, I carry on!!!!! Unfortunately when we reach the blooming lake there's no water in it. Are ya havin a laugh india?????? we take a pic of the mud and smelly rubbish that now fills this holy lake and head on back to the town.... downhill though so it was grand! Back to LLo's for dinner... chicken and potatoes were on the menu.... eh wasnt much to write home about ... Mam can you send me some roasties in the post please!!!! xx

... in India. He has lived in the South near Bangalore (where other Tibetan refugees are), studied in the holy buddhist city of bodgaya, and lived in Mcleod Ganj. He came back to Mcleod Ganj two years ago. After meeting HH (all refugees are afforded the opportunity) and taking part in his teachings, now he says he wants to leave India. He does not like the food, the weather is hot, he misses his family, and it is not as tranquil as ...

... details. We are making an effort to amass a small collection of these, and since Norbulingka has the honest to God artisans we bought one despite the extremely high price. Art here is just as expensive as it is in the U.S, and we paid about $70 for our painting-- the cheapest one they offered, but totally worth it. We hung out here for most of the day, touring the workshops and strolling around the gardens. The Institute also has a Tibetan temple with an even bigger golden ...

... girl was back, and it wasn't five minutes in before I was being asked how often I heard of Tibet back home, and what I thought might happen after the 14th Dalai Lama. We talked about the differences between Tibet and India, and their dislike of Nehru ("yes, India is very kind, but Nehru? He gives us the place where there are always earthquakes and nothing grows. And in the south, we are where it always floods. How can we live like ...

... will make me buff, and I'll take out one of those diamonds and that will pay for everything without having to have phone banking. That's what I need. A bag of diamonds. Well, goodnight, girls!" And he loped off, up the road towards the temple, laughing about his bag of diamonds. Which is all to say, you meet some pretty fascinating people when you travel. There are of course the ones you expect - the drop-outs, the hippies, the ...

... the truth to get themselves out of there. But, it worked. The day before the roads opened, a helicopter came to take ten of them out of Kaza. Two of my Israeli friends, Ram and Vicky, also thought these people were crazy. But, they still were invited to take a free helicopter ride to Manali, which they gladly accepted. I guess it pays to be Israeli.

... it for me. However, the gov't decided to change the rules in the meantime. When I went to the magistrate's court about 11 AM to get my pass, the very officious clerk said that the person with signing authority wouldn't be back until 2 PM. I said that my car and driver were waiting to leave and we had to get started. He, of course, didn't care. My Shimla travel agent said that he could pick it up later that day and they'd send it to me by bus as I didn't need it for the first 3 days ...

... was only about 500 meters above us. The rain had slowed a bit and I even experienced a brief snow shower. The snow had put a brilliant white layer on all of the mountains and glaciers, particularly a grey and ugly jumble of ice at the head of the valley (the Pin Glacier?), made to look like a sparkling white miniature Khumbu Icefall. The last day would be quite long, by design; an estimated 8-9 hours. We ...

... to get up to as it lies 8,000 feet or so up in the mountains and is only reached by two methods, a narrow road and the railway. Upon the recommendation of my Indian History professor from Michigan State, we opted to take the Himalayan Queen; a toy train that winds up 93 Km into the mountains for nearly six hours through over 100 tunnels. There is only one set of tracks along the narrow pathway so men stand along the entire route to manually switch the tracks. It ...

... mountain roads - needless to say we all breathed a sigh of relief on our return to normal roads! Czech - Z Mc loud Gange jsme dorazili do hlavniho mesta Himalay pradesh zvane Shimla, jelikoz jsme dorazili 12 hodinovym autobusem v pozdnich vecernich hodinach a velikem slijaku, bylo to pro nas o to tezsi najit hostel, predevsim v turisticke sezone ktera nedavno zacala.Par mistnich otravu, kteri za penize dohazuji turistum hoteli, byli neodbitny a ...