Jungle Livinn Camps And Retreat Chail

... way out to the road where our driver, Sunji, was taking a nap in his taxi. We woke him up and drove to the main market street in Palampur.

Shopping in India is exhausting, the masses of people, the noise, the traffic… by the time we were finished at around 5:30pm mum and I both had headaches and were ready for bed. We paid our taxi driver (approximately $15 for the day), and took our heaters and other products home with us. A strange but successful day in Palampur.

... chapati - great success! 
Mohan brought some vegetables from Manali - it proved that the local market was shut down by the local authorities because the prices were too high. So there is a deficit here! 
The food is great and spicy, I even dring the local water - they say it's from a deep well. I try to accumulate as much heat as I can, and go to sleep at the hotel. There are three blankets there, I use all of them - one beneath and two on top of me.

... need to go see him. Many travellers turn up with the sole intention of divining some life changing advice from his holiness, he doesn't usually have time to see these people. Others feel they need to see him to feel they have completed their journey- fair play to them, if that's what makes you happy. I wasn't so bothered, although it would have been something cool to tell you all that would have been the overriding reason to try and see him so Idecided against it- he has ...

... that he wanted to look like a hippy I would have respected him. As it is, like a lot of us he's just lying to himself.

Anyways as my hotel dude said "there are no bad places, only bad people". Those guys on the bus were not bad people they were just entertainment until the valium kicked in. But I digress again. I liked it here. Very relaxing although experiencing a heatwave. I organised my train reservations (hope they are on time) and just ...

... floating trash in some parts. This didn't dissuade people from taking paddleboats out on it, but after the long and amazing walk through the hill forests we were really hoping we could go for a swim. With this option out, we walked into the Children's Village, which was a lot more organized than we were expecting. It was like an entire little town based on primary education. The classrooms were in the center and surrounded by little apartments, a playground, and a sports ...

... to worry about what I'm wearing all the time and the shop keepers smile and say hello....just to say hello not because they want to push you to buy. Maybe that's why I bought more stuff in the first two days here than I ever did in Rishikesh.


It's also much cooler, the temperature hovers in the late 20's by mid day and gets about 15 or so at night. This is refreshing considering where I left it was 38 degrees. I can finally breathe ...

... glacier at the pass. More accurately, the path WAS the stream. My feet were soaking wet by the time we got to the top, but I was just happy to get there. We then drove an hour to Lhosar, then first town, where the streets were filled with the villagers offering us free chipatis and chai. Everytime our cup was empty, a group of girls in headscarves would fall all over themselves trying to refill it. I was really touched by their ...

... Tibet to the east and the Zanskar Range to the north. Each day we made side trips up and away from the Sutlej, to the most beautiful, isolated villages. Our first overnight was in Sarahan, the former summer capital of the Bushahr empire, and famous for its Bhimakali Temple, one of the finest examples of Himachal architecure - alternating layers of timber and stone, said to be earthquake proof - as well as a place of human sacrifice. I thought the security guard was considering me for ...

... the morning packing up our thoroughly drenched gear. My 15 year-old Eureka tent is in serious need of a waterproofing, so everything was wet. The river was raging due to the rain, making for a hairy river crossing. We started searching upriver for a way to cross as our guide got fed-up with our reluctance and made the crossing in the thigh deep river adjacent to camp. We searched and tested, jumping the braided ...

... apparently that just meant 30 ticket holders because most of the families seemed to only by tickets for the adults and then would bring all their kids along smashing us all in. It was a miserable five hour journey up to Shimla that was quickly described by Jesse as "attrendous" (a unique combination of atrocious and horrendous). The ride however was very beautiful. Along the way were all these little old British outpost stations that we stopped at. The train took ...