Nest Hotel Kullu

... Le polpette di patate erano squisite. Per colpa dei miei piedi (ho ancora qualche ferita aperta) non ho potuto bagnarmi nelle piscine di acqua bollente che sono dislocate per tutto il villaggio, ma mi sono ripromesso di farlo quando andro' a Vashist, piu' o meno tra una settimana.
Adesso invece sono a Kasol, sotto Manikaran. Punto principale della valle, Kasol e' pieno di internet point e negozi che vendono tutto quello che si vede abitualmente sulle bancarelle indiane in Italia ...

... ashamed of what happened! All i can say is i've never made a grown man cry before now! oh dear...

after calming down, we take a stroll up the main village to get some food. Mc LLo's restaurant which was reccommended in lonely planet was definately the way to go. We had one of tasties meals to date and we enjoyed some cold cider too, ah ye gotta love the tinker juice!! Just like home!

Next day we visit the home of the Dali Lama and the Tibetan ...

... anname juhile homseks vaba päeva.
Soetan Martti juhatusel kõige värskema tõlke Tiibeti surnute raamatust, et kott liiga kerge tassida poleks.
Õhtusöök siseneb väga kiirelt ja mõnda aega ei ole kuulda midagi muud peale lusikaklõbina.
Enne magamaminekut vaatan üle meie hotelli katuseterassi, kus paistab kuu ja näpuotsatäis tähti. Oru vastasküljel puhutakse juba pikemat aega pasunat, lüüakse trummi ja juubeldatakse. Ja seda jätkavad nad kuni uinun.

... this giant WALL of prayer flags. There was literally like a 30 foot tall, maybe 60 foot long wall of the brightly colored flags. It was beautiful! There were monks sitting in the shade of the wall, talking or meditating by themselves. The whole scene was just too perfect. We also passed several small Hindu temples and a Sikh gurdwara on the walk around the lake. It was really cool to be in a place that was so important and sacred to so many different ...

... how they got here. Their answers astonished me, all but one WALKED from Tibet to Nepal and then took a bus from Nepal to India. A couple were lucky to live closer to the border only had to walk for 15 straight days, the rest walked for 30 days. This isn't a stroll we're talking about here, these people walked through the HIMALAYAN mountains, with little food and no shelter to get here. They didn't complain, they actually talked about it very nonchalantly, like it ...

... insects will get eaten, even if I throw them straight back up again as the vendor looks on, eyes wide, mouth agahst.... and.... (Don't write in)... the possiblitiy of consuming dog in Vietnam.... even if it lands me in hospital for a week, is already got my my mouth watering like... erm, something in the wild that eats dogs, I don't know, a bigger dog. But we'll see what south east asia brings up, thats some way off yet. Can't believe i've only ben here 6 days. Tally Ho.

... homeless people and tourists but there is a limit to how long you can stay. Thousands of people are also fed here each day and we saw the preparation area and dining room, I kept thinking of Michael Palin's Himalaya. At 9:30pm we went into the temple amongst lots of bowing and haunting peaceful singing and music coming from inside the temple which is projected around the whole complex. the complex itself is huge (obviously to house thousands of people it would ...

... day in Manali, Grant and I trecked the first segment of the Bara Bhangal multi-day trail. Starting on the edge of town, at the 500 year old Dungri Temple, the trail took us up through the Manali Sanctuary, past unofficial cattle grazing land, and up to a 2920m high meadow called Lama Dug. 6 hours of hiking with 900m of elevation gain was just was just what the doctor ordered, after a couple of weeks of sitting in buses ...

... cares for 5 hours delay, right? The distance itself was only 600km but the indian traffic makes every attempt to go faster than 70 km/h suicidal. As soon as we reached the mountains it all got much slower again as the road changed into a muddy steep slope. The drivers are sometimes on drugs as they drive over 12 hours straight and there were a lot of moments where u start to see your past life passing by. You can't imagine how happy i was when i arrived totally wasted ...

I really am being looked after here. Kishna has set me up in her neighbours house to stay, which has all the things that I have been missing - hot-water shower and a kitchen, and today started with breakfast at Pip's, lunch at Krishna's and dinner at their friends Gayatri. They are all experts in prepaing vegetarian Indian food and Krishna has even published a cook-book on the subject. Sunday is open day at the Ashram, and I went along to a Satsang, a discourse by he Swami (or guru ...