River Bank Hotel Mandi

... proud of the photos of his father with various British vice-roys, and with a love of riddles and jokes... to us "why were there were thousands of people in Brighton today?"; us "why"; his highness of the Maharajah "they live there".

We received hearty wedding congratulations from the Maharajah - sadly not his palace as a wedding gift.

Next update will be from the home of the Tibetan government in exile, with much to cover.

... at you from every direction either trying to get you to come to their guest house, ride in their rickshaw or taxi, or sell you questionable looking icecream or slices of coconut. However this was not the case when we arrived in Mandi because it was so late. We walked around the bus stop for a bit trying to figure out where to go, and then we saw a group of guys standing in front of taxis so we headed over to them. There were probably about 7 or 8 Indian ...

... sleep and pray for free. The Punjabi are so different to the citizens of any other Indian state we have come across in every way possible. They are often BIG, brash people who have an amazing array of turbansd and lots of love to push upon you! At the temple, we bedded down in a wee room alongside so many other people of all colours, creeds and capabilities that it was crazy. We were also fed ...

... the top and sweat removed from brow it was worth it, amazing views and loads of monkeys chatting and discussing politics and the china/tibet problem etc. Noticed one man being besiged by two monkeys, one screaming at him to get his attention, and the other with his little monkey hands in his pockets!! They were creating a diversion! No one knows when Jackhoo temple was built, but the storey is that Hanumen (to whome the temple is dedicated - the monkey god) came up here ...

... first one was not that easy getting the back wheel off on my own with limited tools but I managed, from here it was straight forward as I was carrying a spare tube. The second time I had to repair the tube as I was in the middle of nowhere. I managed a good bodge using superglue, some plastic tarpaulin I found (a puncture repair ...

... over her eyes most of the way, petrified of the drops at the side of the roads!! You can tell she hasn't been in India long, she'll soon get use to them!! Yesterday's journey to Mandi was a bit of a nightmare, up at the crack of dawn to catch the 6.30 bus here from Tatapani we sat for ages well over 1.30 hours only to find out that due to a landslide the bus wouldn't be coming and we would have to go back to Shimla to catch a ...

... up the mountain, 3 people on it, waving flags and being rowdy. This is were i really got ****** off. Intercepted them, asked for their names and told them i was going to have a little chat with their employers. Turned out they all worked for my instructor. Drove down to the training strip, wich was another 20 kilometres downhill. After five minutes the bike stalled....... "now what', i thought. Had a peek in the petrol tank, and yes, no fuel, the ...

... at Kullu in the afternoon determined to continue to Manikaran, but ended up spending the night as the simple task of finding an ATM became a lengthy one. Kullu is pretty much a hole; a center of commerce for the valley and the administrative capital of the region. It has no redeeming qualities. My overly negative view could be due to the Delhi Belly. Who knows. We spent much of the ...

... I told him to f*ck off. He then said that he would call the cops. I looked around and about 50 metres away from us there actually was a cop taking care of the traffic flow. Ok, I said, lets talk to the cops right now, and I called out for him. I explained the situation to him, and at first he was on my side. Then the local guy started to talk to the cop in hindi, so I couldn't understand a word. Then all of a sudden the cop told me to pay that local....Well, this ...

... Leh, via the seconds highest motorway in the world. Still got to find out wether the buses already go there, since the road has been impassible due to all the snow that fell last winter. I wanted to find out today, but since it's raining now i can't be bothered to drive to the bus stand and find out. Ok, gonna watch a movie now, and try to forget about my camera :) All the best & thanks for all the lovely e mails! Till next time, cheers, vincent