Hotel Preet Manali

... also listened to a guy play a wonderful sitar solo for about an hour.



Now moving on to the Ladakh roadtrip.

The night was pitch black and a vicious street dog fight had just finished when a car arrived to pick us up from the deserted main street of Vashisht and take us to our 2am private bus that would spend the next 20 hours crawling it's way to Leh in the Indian Himalayans 479km away. Ladakh translates into English as "The Land Of High Passes ...

... each and a few spare spinners, and headed upstream alongside a fast flowing river that spewed from the mountains. There were points where the river appeared tame, almost enticing, a dreamy clear blue that begged to be swum in. In reality, as we were to find out when we had no option but to cross at shallow points, the river was fed by melting snow further upstream and had a heart-stopping, alien coldness to it, a mere thirty seconds submerged turned ...

... hike the hills and peaks that are the doorsteps to the Himalayas. We have been to the Buddhist Temple where the Dalai Lama stays and witnessed the shrines, monks, nuns, and followers of the peaceful and tolerant Religion and Philosophy that Buddhism is. Unfortunately we missed the public speeches the Dalai Lama gives every year by a week or so, but have found many sources of his wisdom and the teachings of Buddhism in and around town. This being the headquarters for the ...

... We decided to go to KFC which was a lot of fun and very satisfying. Then we went to Art History class. We had talked about going to Rodeo, and Mexican food restaurant near the museum, with a couple of friends. I thought that only a couple people were going to show up but it turned out that word had gotten around that it was my birthday and almost everybody in the group showed up-at about twenty people we almost took over the entire restaurant! It ...

... we called him timmy). At points he even seemed to be showing us the way, keeping us out of trouble. This was all good until we got to the top and there was a pack of stray dogs there who rounded on timmy (who tried to use us as a shield - not much use, even with a rabies vaccine!) Timmy was last seen heading downhill at speed pursued by four or five bigger dogs. I'm sure this wasn't how it happened in Enid Blyton. Anyway, tommorrow ...

bonjour a tous!!! merci pour vos petits messages!! c bien agreable de vous lire!!! g pas pu vous ecrire pendant un petit bout de temps parce que a chaque fois que je veux aller sur internet c occupe, ya une panne d internet ou d electricite. enfin voila je suis ici, tout va bien, en fait je suis toujours avec la fille israelienne et l italien. on s entend bien et ca fait du bin de se stabiliser un peu dans un endroit. on se promene dans ...

... biletow. Po drodze wyrzuca co bardziej niereformowalnych pasazerow. Przyjemnosc sprawia mu rowniez czeste I glosne uzywanie gwizdka, co malo nie przyprawia nas o zawal serca, a na pewno gluchoty. Do Manali dojezdzamy w poludnie. Pierwsze co uderza po wyjsciu z autobusu to parne powietrze, silny zapach marihuany i halas. Bierzemy riksze za 50 Rs. I ...

... apple pie' in an 'italian restaurant' the night before!) we set off on the trek. There was no warming up, just an immediate incline. At 8 we got to a cafe on the way and had breakfast which was really nice - stodgy thick tibetan sweet bread with peanut butter, processed cheese slices, butter and boiled eggs, not forgetting the usual chai tea, this time with ginger. Having written the above it sounds absolutely revolting, but I am not joking it tasted really good after so ...

Chilling out for a couple of days here, I guess I will spend one more night here before setting off for Manali, which is meant to be even a little more crowded with westerners than here. Manali will be a stop to try to get some gear for the high mountains, which may just come in handy. As there are loads of trekkers passing through there, I think I will have to try some of the street vendors to try to pick up used mountaineering supplies. When I was younger, I ...

... Verbindungen geknuepft und unsere Tage hatten einen recht festen Ablauf: Der Wecker klingelt um halb sieben. So frueh sind wir bis dato nur beim Trekken aufgestanden, aber sieben Uhr beginnt die erste Meditation im alten und ruhigen Ved Niketan Ashrams, wo wir uns haeuslich eingerichtet haben. Nach dieser ersten Laeuterung haben wir Zeit fuer's Fruehstuck und 10h folgt dann der taegliche Vortrag eines alten Yoga-Lehrers ...