Hotel Snow Park Manali

... männimetsa, riisiterasside ja pisikeste külade. Jätkuvalt needsamad napikad möödasõidud, kus kahe mööduva sõiduki vahele vaevalt rusikas mahub. Mäed muutuvad järjest suuremaks ja majesteetlikumaks, tee äärde ilmuvad taas suurte, kassitappu meenutavate lillade õitega taimed.
Sõidukiiruse osas on Marttil juhiga eriarvamusi, muuhulgas pudeneb lause "Which part of 40 don't you understand, the four or the zero?"...
Ester ei vali paraku ...

... so exposed that the wind threatened to knock you over, and you couldn't look up without the distinct feeling of drowning in the driving rain, my father and I invented a game. It was called "how does this measure up to the most unpleasant things you have ever, in your entire life, experienced?" Dad ranked it worse than surgery in Tbilisi but better than skiing an entire mountain with a broken leg. I put it somewhere hovering around major oral surgery ...

... in Leh itself is such a high...literally speaking! At 11,500 feet the Leh airfield is the highest in the world. The flight captain promised us that the landing would be visible, whatever that meant! Once we had left Delhi behind, it was mountains all the way and we were soon flying over barren mountainscapes interspersed with emerald green fields. The high altitudes make cultivation difficult but the Ladakhis sure know how to make the most ...

... music which was really cool. We bumped into some guys we met in Mcleod and hung out with them, and met some German guys, Joe found some nice Swiss girls who were teaching him German. Unfortunately by the time we left (about 2am) there were no more rickshaws (the wak is about 5km) so we somehow comandeered a tourch and set out, well beer jacketed for od Manali. We managed to pass the time on the walk singing eastern europian songs!

... the magnificent foothills and Himalayas.. ...and room service!!..... And TV!!! We were shown a 1st floor room and quoted 900!!! What!! So as he did not intend to drop enough we looked at the identical room the floor below (same view) which we bartered to 400 rps, about a fiver!!! Loads of hot water and views to die for, imagine how wonderful it was to wake to those views this morning ...

... had a violent blowout, and the driver slowed for a moment before resuming breakneck (or break-everything-in-the-way) speed. The sleeper bus is a tiny bit taller than the usual bus, just enough to fit berths above the seats, most of them "doubles," which means you are stuffed into a one-meter wide flat and lightly padded platform with somebody you don't know, foot to head, and invariably that person smells, whether of guthka, *****, never-washed armpits, or some un-nameable industrial ...

... and as two monks played a flute-like instrument, the Dalai Lama slowly walked passed, his palms together, a warm smile radiating from his face. I stood there, palms together, transfixed and tears sprung to my eyes as I watched him walk past, under the adoration of the people around him. The moment seemed surreal and as he disappeared through the gates, I quietly walked away, feeling blessed at having been able to see him.

... exile and countless tibetan refugees so there's lots to read about the mistreatment of Tibet by the Chinese authorities. The most holy temple there is a joke in comparison to the ones in Tibet, hitting home how much it sucks that the holiest man in Buddhism is a refugee! In Dharamsala we did not much more than eat, drink tea and play cards as the weather sucked but we still all had an enjoyable few days together. Us and the french guys left for Manali together on a horrible ten hour ...

... gutters (the first I've seen in India) and steam pours out along the gutter-lined roads. There is also a same-sex bathing area where you can sit in the hot water...if you have the skin of a lizard. I tried to sit in the bath and I burnt the skin on my legs, but I managed to stand under the tap for a few moments and was blessed/burned with the special waters. The Hindu temples at this altitude (2000m) are made of carved wood and they are much smaller, like little cabins, tibetan ...

... heard what was going on at the TCV. We replied that we had only just arrived and, anyway, what was the TCV. He explained to us that the Tibetan Children's Village is an organisation that grew out of a nearby school set up to educate and look after Tibetan orphans and refugees. We, he told us, were lucky enough to be here on their fortieth anniversary and as such could go and watch the games and even attend an address by the Dalai Lama, their patron. Yoshi turned out to be ...